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THE 



Cosmic God. 



A FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN 



POPULAR LECTURES. 



IS-A.-A.C :vl -wise, 

Rabbi of the Benai Yeshurun Congregation. President of 
the Hebrew Union College. 



CINCINNATI : 
Office American Israelite and Deborah 

1876. 







^fJ, 



<?- 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

ISAAC M. WISE, 

In che Clerk's Office of the Disirict Court of the United Stat:s 

for the Southern District of Ohio. 



r 



©edidktion 



This volume is dedicated to the memory of a 
sainted Mother in Israel, a peerless woman of sub- 
lime virtues, a spouse of matchless affection, a parent 
of angelic benignity: 

Therese Wise, nee Bloch. 

She died December ioth, 1874, fifty-one years old. 
To her, my beloved wife, who in life possessed my 
heart with its best affections, I dedicate in eternity 
my best thoughts. 

The Author. 



PREFACE. 



This book, conceived in sorrow, composed in grief, anil 
constructed at the brink of despair, contains my mind's 
best thoughts, and my soul's triumph over the powers of 
darkness. My wife, my dearly beloved companion in 
this eventful life, the mother of my childdren, the faithful 
partner of my joys and my sufferings, was prostrated with 
an incurable disease. For nearly two years she lived the 
life of a shadow, without affection or clear consciousness, 
no more herself than the ruin is the castle. I prayed, I 
wept, I mourned, I despaired; and yet my cup of woe was. 
not full. A feeling which I can not describe, in clashing 
conflict with the above, against which my sense of duty 
rebelled, and my better nature continually and forcibly re- 
monstrated, overwhelmed me so irresistabry, with such in- 
expressible violence, that I was drifting and whirling about 
in a roaring current of lacerating contradictions, tormen- 
ting self-accusations bordering on self contempt. 

Ruthless attacks upon my character, of restless assail- 
ants, from the camp of implacable foes, embittered my 
joyless days. My energies failed. Insanity or suicide ap- 
peared inevitable. In this state of mind, the Satan of \ 
Doubt persecuted me with all his furious demons. My con- V 
victions were uprooted, and my faith was shaken; I was 
myself no longer. Once, at the midnight hour, in a state 
of indifference and stupor, I opened the Bible, and per- 
chance I read: 

" Unless thy law had been my delights, I should long* 
since have been lost in my affliction." (Psalms 119, 92.) 

It struck me forcibly: "There is the proper remedy for 
all afflictions." When those ancient Hebrews spoke of 
the law of God, they meant the whole of it revealed in God's 
words and works. Research, science, philosopy, deep and 
perplexing, problems most intricate and propositions most 
complicated, I thought, like the rabbis of the talmud, must 
be the proper remedy for all maladies of the heart and 
reason. I plunged headlong into the whirlpool of philos- 
ophy, and, I believe, to have found many a gem in the 
fathomless deep. But the costliest of all gems I -found is. 



PREFACE. O 

;a calm and composed mind, a self-relying conviction. I 
found myself once more. My sainted wife having been 
the first cause of this turn in my life's history, and this vol- 
ume containing the first fruits of my independent research- 
es in science and philosophy, I have dedicated it to her 
memory. 

I had lectured every Friday evening for two successive 
winters on the History of Philosophy, with special refer- 
ence to the Jewish philosophers down to Baruch Spinoza 
and Moses Mendelssohn, and published sketches thereof 
in The Israelite. Meanwhile I read the modern books on 
philosophy and science, especially by German authors. In 
the summer of the year 1874, under the most distressing 
circumstances, I sketched the course of lectures now laid 
before the public, and delivered them in the fall and win- 
ter of 1874-5, in the Temple of the Benai Yeshurun Con- 
gregation of Cincinnati, and published extensive abstracts 
thereof in The A??ierican Israelite. The Cincinnati daily 
papers, especially the Enquirer, and my audience encour- 
aged me so kindly, that I revised those lectures to give 
them to the public in the present form, as a genuinely 
American production of the philosophizing mind. 

No metaphysics ! No transcendant and no transcendent- 
al philosophy ! No formal speculations ! — the good na- 
tured, sweet tempered and self-complacent pastor exclaims, 
blessed either with a superabundance of uninquired faith, 
or with the consciousness of his inability to confront the 
spirit of the age with its new problems, forced upon the 
thinking mind by the successes and discoveries of science, 
.and advertised in a variety of forms by a class of so called 
free thinkers, whose voice reaches all classes of society, 
down to the village school-room. The days of touching 
simplicity are gone, This is an age of sober reflection, 
deep and irresistable. Either you are able of defending 
your dogmas before the judgment seat of reason, or you 
must see them antiquated and impotent. The conflict of 
science and religion is before your doors, however senti- 
mentally and devotionally you may whitewash the crumb- 
ling walls, or galvanize defunct forms, or close your eyes 
in fervent prayer, to see not ho w the platform shakes under 
your feet. You must defend yourselves or surrender. 
What are your arms of defence, if you philosophize not ? 

Again, the scientist, and the specialist in particular, who 
attempts to coustruct the universe in compliance to the 
laws governing one science, is no less opposed to philoso- 
yliy than the sentimental pastor. It is natural that the sci- 
entist, engaged in investigating empirically isolated phe- 
nomena, classifying formally the analogous facts, and seek- 



6 ' PREFACE. 

ing by experience and experiment the law which governs 
them respectively, should be so engulfed in empiricism 
and one-sided particularism that the universe appear to him 
submerged in his particular science, beyond which there 
is nothing. But philosophy is not a merely systematical 
cognition of a class of things or even all things ; it is the- 
cognition of the principles, the summation and harmoniza- 
ticn of the deepest relations of all physical and spiritual es- 
sence; it is the first and also the last of all sciences, froin 
which all of them emerged, and in which all of them finally 
submerge. The sciences are the building stones of phil- 
osophy, from which it construes the system of the uni- 
verse, in which all is in its proper place, and all parts are 
united to a harmonious totality. Philosophy extends be- 
yond each science and all sciences, as far as intelligence 
reaches beyond phenomenal nature. The systems of phil- 
osophy must be different on account of the different phil- 
osophizing subjects, the various starting points, and the 
scientific means at the command of each; but the object of 
philosophy is invariably the same, and each of the systems 
has contributed its share to the solution of the gigantic 
problem, What is this universe? 

In the volume before you, I have made the attempt to 
respond to this question. Reviewing the sciences in con- 
nection with the main points of the problem, adhering 
strictly to the law of causality and the method of induc- 
tion, I believe to have reached a definite conception of the- 
universe, and the God of the uuiverse. Therefore I con- 
sider this a fundamental philosophy, from which the vari- 
ous philosophical disciplines can be derived. The uni- 
verse, with the exception of matter, which is a very small 
fraction thereof, appearing to me synonymous with Deity, 
so that the present volume is in the main a new evidence 
of the existence of Deity, I nave called it The Cosmic 
God, in whom and by whom there is the one grand har- 
monious system of things, in whom and by whom nature 
is a cosmos and no chaos. 

I know well that this is not the God of vulgar theology,, 
nor ib it the God of Spinoza or Locke. I could not dis- 
cover either of them in my researches into the phenome- 
nal sciences and history. Theologians can give us no defi- 
nition of Deity; their ideas are indefinite and vague, and 
consequently the cause of atheism. The God of Spinoza 
and Locke is submerged in nature, so that nature is God, 
and God is nature, beyond which there is nothing. The 
infinite has become finite in nature, and all is necessity. 
This excludes all principles of freedom and ethics. This 
pantheism, falsely called so, because the universe is infi 



PREFACE. 7 

nitely more than all objects ot nature, in the minds of de- 
pendent thinkers, changed into fatalism and materialism, 
lasts heavily upon the present generation. I did not 
arrive at either of those conclusions concerning Deity, 
simply because as free as possible from all prejudices, and 
from the present state of the sciences, I could reach The 
Cosmic God only. If it is not the God of modern theol- 
ogy, He is God after all, the Eternal Jehovah, who will- 
be worshiped by future generations. 

THE AUTHOR. 



OOItTTIEICTTS. 



Lecture. 

I. Truth and its Criterion, - 

II. The Mind's Receptivity and Spontaneity, - 

III. Mind or Brain, - - 

IV. Human Mind actualized in its Monuments, 
V. Second Lecture on same subject, 

VI. Homo-Brutalism Reviewed, - 

VII. Homo-Brutalism — Reviewed Anatomically, 

VIII. Homo-Brutalism-Reviewed Psychologically 

IX. Elementary Ontology, .... 

X. History of Materialism, - - - 

XI. Dynamic Ontology, - 

XII. Biology, - 

XIII. Biology— Part II, 

XIV. Origin of Species, 

XV. Teleology, ...--- 

XVI. Will and Intellect in Nature, 

XVII. Superhuman Will and Intellect in History, 

XVIII. Superhuman W T ill and Intellect in History, 
— Concluded, - 

XIX. Metaphysics. — i. God in Nature. - 

XX. Metaphysics. — n. Nature's God. 

XXI. Nature and its Relation to Deity. - 

XXII. Man in his Relations to God and Nature. - 



Page. 

9 
16 

2 3 
3* 

39 

47 

55 

, 62 

7° 

■ 77 
§5 
93 

IOI 

ioS 
119 
127 

*33 

141 

H9 

J 57 

165 

*73 



THE 



COSMIC GOD 



A FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN 

POPULAR LECTURES. 



LECTURE I. 



TRUTH AND ITS CRITERION. 



Ladies and Gentlemen — The object of the course of 
1 ctures to which this is introductory is to find truth by 
t.ie instrumentality of inductive philosophy. It is now 
■supposed that Hamlet was right in saying — 

" If circumstances lead me, I will find 

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 
Within the center." 

It is proposed to go over the whole ground of the philo- 
sophical problems which concern religion, in order to as- 
certain, after a fair and full consideration of the philoso- 
phy and the sciences of the nineteenth century, what 
remains to be held up as the religious doctrine of honest 
and intelligent people, without conflict with the intelli- 
gence of this enlightened and progressive age ; what re- 



10 THE COSMIC GOD. 

mains to be constructed into the religion of the future 
generation. Whatever philosophy and science have over- 
come, is dead, and the dead decays by its own inherent 
law. The corpse may be embalmed, but then it is a 
mummy. It is proposed to ascertain the living elements 
of truth. Therefore the first problem to be solved is, 
What is truth, and which is its criterion ? 

"What mark does truth, what "bright distinction hear ? 
How do we know that what we know is true ? 
How shall we falsehood fly and truth pursue?' ' 

What is truth ? Facts and objects in themselves are 
neither true nor false ; they are. Their representations 
in the human mind, the ideas, may be true and false. An 
idea is true if it is an accurate and complete mental image 
of the fact or object, or any of its parts or attributes 
which it represents. A negation is true if it denies that 
which exists not. But in all instances ideas only are true 
or false ; facts and objects are neither. 

The accurate, complete, and harmonious knowledge of 
all facts and objects is truth. The Omniscient only is in 
possession of abolute truth. In man, with whom knowl- 
edge is necessarily limited, truth is relative to nis knowl- 
edge. In man, truth is the accuracy, completeness, and 
harmony of the facts and objects of his cognition. As long 
as one has no accurate and complete knowledge of the 
elements of his cognition, their aggregate must be defect- 
ive; it is not truth. Analysis is reason's start in search 
of truth. If the elements of cognition are accurate and 
complete in the judgment of the thinking agent — but they 
are disharmonious, bearing in themselves the germs of 
contradiction — then their aggregate is not truth. The 
want of harmony in the cognitions proves their in accu- 
racy or incompleteness. Truth is synthetical. It is the 
unison in man's cognition and cognitions. You see all 
truth is ideal. Take away self-conscious intelligence,, 
and there is no truth. 

Harmony in the elements of our knowledge is the cri- 
terion of truth. There is no other. Therefore, in order 
to be sure that what we know is true, we must in the 
first place analyze the elements of our knowledge ; and 
where this is possible, compare each image in the mind 
to its respective realty, within or without, to be convinced 
of their identity, and then control each idea by the neces- 
sary harmony among all of them, 



TRUTH AND ITS CRITERION. 1 I 

Let us illustrate. Every person of sound mind and 
sense has some ideas of the shape, bulk, and distance of 
the sun. "With persons who have no astronomical knowl- 
edge, these ideas are usually false, although they have ob- 
served the sun all the days of their lives, and are quite sure 
of their sensations, impressions, and perceptions ; because 
they have never compared their ideas with the correspond- 
ing realities. Science has discovered the means to do this, 
and has established the spherical form of the sun, with a 
diameter of 850,100 miles, 107 times the mean diameter of 
the earth; with a bulk 600 times as large as that of all 
known planets together; and with a mean distance from 
the earth about 90,000,000 of miles. By comparison of idea 
and reality their identity was established. 

Now suppose that a person ignorant of astronomy be told 
all these facts and numbers, their correlatives, and the* 
scientific process by which they were established, his 
knowledge of the sun would still be incomplete, because 
he is ignorant of the mechanical and physical constitution 
of that luminary, as spectrum analysis and solar photog- 
raphy have revealed it. But knowing all this, he finds in 
his mind the idea ot the sun moving around the earth, 
which he supposes to have observed repeatedly and clearly. 
Next he finds in his mind the idea that the larger body at- 
tracts the smaller, and that the motion of the sun or earth 
depends on the bulk of matter constituting them respect- 
ively. His ideas are in disharmony, and he knows at 
once that he is not in possession of truth. His cognit- 
ions require correction, until they are harmonized, and 
then only he has arrived at the truth of the matter. All 
cognitions of the individual thus harmonized with the cog- 
nitions of man universally, it is in possession of truth, as 
far as attainable at this stage of history. 

This illustration proves not only man's innate abilities 
of correct comparison and judgment, which none doubts 
who admits the exactness of mathematics, but also that he 
possesses knowledge which has not reached him through 
the avenues of his senses, neither by any one, nor all of 
them in co-operation. All known facts concerning the 
solar system are contrary to the impressions which those 
bodies make on our senses. Therefore we take here for 
granted that man's knowledge originates but partly from 
the impressions received through his senses, while it orgin- 
ates partly from some other scource. We call this other 
sejjurce mind, spirit, or soul, with its feelings, volitions, and 
intelligence. Let us call these two elements in our knowl- 
edge, in relation to their origin, the sensual and the men- 



12 THE COSMIC GOD. 

tal. Man has sensual knowledge of what he perceives by 
his senses and mental knowledge of what he brings forth 
hy the exercise of his mind. To remain within the limits 
of our illustration, we would say he knows the sun, planets, 
and moons by sensual tuition ; but he knows their shapes, 
bulks, distances, constitutions, rotations, and relations by 
mental cognition. 

This illustration proves furthermore, that mental cognit- 
ion is superior to sensual intuition and must control it. 
Had the mind not corrected the perceptions of the senses, 
the sun would still appear to us, as to all the animals, a 
Hat circular section, forty or fifty feet in diameter, and a 
few thousand yards above our heads. This is a stumbling 
block to gross realism, for all do and must believe verities 
"which they can neither see, hear, smell, taste or touch, and 
none can deny the exactness of mathematics. It is no less 
a stumbling block to scientific realism. While you listen 
to what I say, you receive by the sensual organ a knowl- 
edge of words, of successive articulate sounds, and no 
more; by your mind you grasp the knowledge of con- 
nected and consecutive thoughts, propositions, arguments, 
evidence, and conclusions which stand in no imaginable 
relation to the air's motion caused by my speaking, as little, 
indeed, as the mere sight of the celestial bodies has to our 
knowledge of their respective distances, magnitudes, 
rotations, chemical constituents, etc., of all of which the 
animal is ignorant, although it sees the same bodies. May 
I be permitted to add that the materialist, whatever 
forces, energies, qualities, or attributes he may consider 
inherent in matter, tacitly admits the existence of mind 
as the superior source of knowledge, as often as he attempts 
to embrace any totality of phenomena in a logical formula. 

It naturally follows, that only the sensual element of our 
knowledge consists of such images of facts or objects, 
which can be compared to their corresponding realties out- 
side of the mind, and the truth of wnich, in the mind, is 
established beyond doubt, by geometry, arithmetic, physics, 
chemistry, &c, by the established facts of natural science. 
The mental element of our knowledge can not be compar- 
ed with such realities, because it consists of no images 
thereof. With the man of history, the mental element 
preponderates over the sensual. Sot by the intuition of 
his senses, he has his knowledge of God, the world as a 
cosmos in space and time with law, cause and effect, or of 
man as a race which makes history, or of the relations of 
God, man, and world. It is by the mental process that he 
knows whatever he may know, affirms or denies whatever 



TEUTH AND ITS CRITERION. 13 

he may do about God, man, world, and their relations. 
The sensual element is the minimum and the mental is the 
maximum in his knowledge. If the materialist denies the 
substantiality of the mind, he must nevertheless admit the 
reality of mental cognitions. For affirming or denying he 
exercises his mental judgment. In either case he must 
say, I think, and not I see, hear, smell, taste, or touch that 
your propositions about God, man, world, and their rela- 
tions are true or false. If one speaks of the qualities 
of matter, he is already beyond the sphere of the sensual 
element and deals io abstractions. If one speaks of laws, 
mechanical, physical, or physiological, he stands upon a, 
ground beyond the intuition of senses. If one thinks of 
religion, morals, government, law, art, science, taste, feel- 
ing, thought, will, talent, or genius, he deals in mental ele- 
ments exclusively. 

How do we know that what we mentally know is true? 
Is reasoning from analogy of the mental and sensual ad- 
missible? Are its conclusions reliable? A ball will roll 
down an inclined plane, and ideas will not. The associa- 
tion of ideas has nothing in common with the attraction of 
cohesion. Eeason forms no judgment by mechanical ac- 
tion. All molecular motion of the brain is no thought 
yet. The laws of mind are entirely different from the 
laws of matter. One explains not the other. Therefore 
all supposed analogies to expound mind by matter or vice 
versa, the sensual by the mental element or vice versa, are 
necessarily false, the conclusions to which they lead must 
be illegitimate, and appear so also to the materialist who 
admits the existence of logic, the laws of which have noth- 
ing in common with the mechanical, physical, or physiolog- 
ical. Therefore, by reasoning from analogy we can not 
arrive at any certainty, that the mental elements of our 
knowledge are true. 

Let us turn the question, how do we arrive at certainty 
that the sensual elements of our knowledge are true? A 1 
human senses are imperfect and liable to error. They are 
no accurate physical apparatuses, and we know that they 
are not. In numerous cases we do not trust our senses, 
and it is just that we do not, or we would still see in the 
sun a flat circular section thirty or forty feet in diameter a 
few thousand yards above our heads. We control the sen- 
sual impressions by mental reflection. We compare the 
preceptions with the mental ideas present in the mind, un- 
til the judgment produces harmony. We arrive at the 
certainty of shapes and distances by geometry, of numbers 
by arithmetic, of constituents by chemistry, of qualities 



14 THE COSMIC GOD. 

and changes by physics, always by mental processes, 
controlling and correcting sensual impressions. 

On the other hand, we reverse the process and say, the 
mental elements of our knowledge must be controlled and 
corrected by the sensual, until the mind arrives at tlie har- 
mony of both. We know that our senses are im])erfect 
physical apparatuses; hence we know more than the senses 
reveal, and we know better. This plus is the controlling 
}:>ower of allse'nsual intuitions. On the other hand, we see, 
hear, smell, taste, or touch sensual objects as shaped by im- 
agination, and know that they are outside of us, as they 
appear to us. This knowledge of external realities must 
control and correct our speculations. Again we know that 
Ave know all this and that in one and the same self-con- 
sciousness, which acquires its knowledge of God, man, 
world, and their relations through two different avenues, 
to become one in the self-consciousness. Hence we can 
consider our knowledge correct and true, only if each idea 
is in harmony with all the others in the same self-conscious- 
ness. The sensual corrects the mental, the mental corrects 
the sensual, the process is reciprocal, until harmony is pro- 
duced, which is truth. 

The sensual elements of man's knowledge, composed of 
the images of material nature, formed by experience or 
experiments, controlled, harmonized, generalized, and syste- 
matized, and reduced to laws by the human, intellect, is 
called natural science. You see, in science the sensual ele- 
ment is the substratum, upon which the mental works 
comparing and organizing. Science can not go beyond 
its sensual substratum, which it shapes. The mental ele- 
ments of the mind, composed of the images of spirit, with- 
in and without, formed by observation, meditation and re- 
flection, controlled and corrected by the sensual, harmon- 
ized, generalized, and systematized, is called philosopy. 
You see, in philosophy, the mental element is reason's sub- 
stratum, upon which the sensual exercises a controlling 
and correcting influence. Philosophy is boundless as the 
human mind, and limited only by the facts of science and 
the laws of logic. 

Here again the same criterion of truth. As long as 
science and philosophy contradict one another in any point 
or points, their dis-harmony proves inaccuracy or incom- 
pleteness of cognition on the one side or the other, and the 
necessity of correction. Their harmony is the only crite- 
rion of truth in our possession. Say in plain words, exper- 
ience and speculation must control each other, and their 
bArmony is to the human mind the criterion of truth in 



TRUTH AND ITS CRITERION. 15 

our knowledge. This rule will guide us invariably in this 
course of lectures. We will seek harmony in science and 
philosophy. 

That the things outside of the mind really exist, can not 
be doubted in science ; hence according to our criterion ot 
truth, it is established in philosophy. Immanuel Kant 
overthrows Berkeley's extreme idealism in the following 
thesis : " the mere consciousness, but empirically certain, 
of my own existence, proves the existence of objects in 
space outside of myself."* To prove means to show truth, 
in the light of certainty. 

We add, to doubt the existence of things outside of mind 
is to doubt the truth and exactness of mathematics. If so, 
I must doubt every thing I know, for I know it all by one 
apparatus and by the same process. If my knowledge ot 
the existence ol things in space outside of me, is doubtful 
then my knowledge in general is doubtful, and this partic- 
ular knowledge also must be doubtful ; hence it is doubt- 
ful, that my knowledge of the existence of the things is 
doubtful. This is the vicious circle of skepticism, which 
at the last instance must doubt that it doubts. 

In our opinion, man is gifted with all the powers to know 
truth and the full truth. That which we know now is no 
criterion of what man will know after ten thousand years 
of history. It can. not be doubted that we know many 
things as certain as Descartes knew his "Cogito.ergo sum," 
and to know for certain is to possess truth in that matter. 
Whatever is possible is one department of our knowledge 
is possible in all of them. Let us seek truth and we will 
.find it and recognize it by its criterion. 

" Truth, like a single point, escapes the sight, 
And claims attention to perceive it right ; 
But what resembles truth is so'on descried, 
Spreads like a surface, and expanded wide." 



" :: Lehrsatz— Das blosse, aber empirish bestimmte, Bewusstein meineseigenen 
Daseines beweist das Dasein der Gegenstaende im Raum ausser mir. 



16 THE COSMIC GOD. 



LECTURE II. 



THE MIND'S KECEPTIVITY AND SPONTANEITY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — If any one of you would feel 
the desire of presenting to your friend a bouquet, which by 
arrangement of colors and disposition of leaflets, should 
suggest in floral language your feelings and thoughts, you 
would certainly first go over your flower beds and select 
among Flora's offspring the most suitable to your purpose, 
then arrange and entwine them into a bouquet to your taste 
and wishes. Please imagine that I wish to present to you 
a bouquet of my best mental flowers, unfolding to you my 
thoughts and feelings. Must I not first go over my flower 
bed and make the proper selection ? I only invite you to 
accompany me on a walk through the beautiful garden of 
human nature. Inductive philosophy is a systematic struct- 
ure of harmonizing facts. First we must secure the facts, 
then we can construct the philosophical system. The 
substratum of all philosophy is the mental element of the 
mind ; hence we must know all about it before we can 
philosophize. First the flowers and then the bouquet. 

In my last lecture the work of collecting was commenced.. 
I believe I have established that truth is ideal ; it is in self- 
conscious intelligence only,relative and in proportion to the 
sum of each individual's knowledge ; that this knowledge 
consists of sensual and mental elements and the harmony 
of these elements in the same consciousness is the criterion 
of truth. Let us see now how the mind obtains knowl- 
edge ; — how do we come to know what we know. 

The knowledge of every person is the aggregate of sim- 
ple ideas, as none can think more than one idea at a time, 
which must be either received or spontaneous. "Whatever 
one learns by oral instruction, letters, symbols, or examples 
consists of received ideas. Whatever one observes, experi- 
ences, within or without, discovers, invents, produces by 
meditation or reflection, is his own ; and this knowledge- 
consists of spontaneous ideas. Postulating mind as above, 
it follows th°t knowledge is obtained by two innate capa- 
cities of the mind, viz.: Eeceptivity and Spontaneity. 



THE MIND'S RECEPTIVITY AND SPONTANEITY. 17 

This proposition is not in conflict either with John 
Locke's or Immauuel Kant's respective theories. John 
Locke compares the soul to a blank sheet of paper, upon 
which will be that which will be written or printed on it. 
The comparison is false according to Locke's own opin- 
ions. If it were correct, then we must arrive at the 
knowledge of our knowledge and its elements by sensual 
observation only, so that if one had no corporeal senses 
he could possess no knowledge whatever, not even self- 
consciousness. This assertion is empiric, relies on exter- 
nal evidence,, and yet there is none to support it. There 
never was known a human being without corporeal sense ; 
and if one had come under human observation, none 
could have ascertained his state of mind. On the other 
hand we know how the mind replaces to some extent a 
missing sense or senses, by the augmented abilities of the 
others, as among lower animals lost limbs are replaced, or* 
teeth in young people, by the inherent organic force. 
The sense of touch or hearing with some blind people is 
perfectly wonderful and, to a great extent, replaces the 
lost sense of vision to the very distinction of colors. The 
facts collected in asylums for the deaf, dumb and blind, 
how senses or even limbs replace each other's activity 
and energy, by the internal organic force, are popularly 
known and need not be reproduced here. 

The fact is that Locke himself protests only against in- 
nate maxims, in his time called innate ideas, adduced then 
to mystic speculations of all kinds ; but he denies not 
the mind's innate capacities to know truth, or else nobody 
could possibly know, that there is any truth in sensual in- 
tuitions . What are those innate capacities of the mind, 
which Locke admits, enabling the mind^ to know truth ? 
They cannot be merely mechanical or chemical appara- 
tuses to grasp, extort, press out or boil out truth or sen- 
sual impressions. They can be ideas only which are in 
the mind, conscious or unconscious, with which the new 
incomers are associated by their identity, or they are re- 
pelled as false by their dissimilarity. If so, the compari- 
son to a sheet of paper is erroneous, for the capacities of 
the mind are active and essential, while the capacities of 
the paper are passive and accidental. Again, if so, there 
are ideas in the mind prior to sensual intuition, which 
must be spontaneous, besides those produced by medita- 
tion ; so that if there ever had been a man without any 
cornoreal sense, he would still have thought over his own 
ideas or the imagery of his phantasy, as we see daily al- 
most ignorant people do. 
2 



18 THE COSMIC GOD. 

Therefore Kant, who had been considerably influenced 
by Locke's Essays, felt compelled to supplement Locke's 
theory by the fact that we arrive at the knowledge of our 
knowledge and its elements by inductive reasoning, start- 
ing from a priori ideas in the mind, to which the judg- 
ment compares every new idea acquired. The process 
appears somewhat mysterious, but it only appears so. I 
will try to show its simplicity and beauty. 

But if there were, on this particular point any disa- 
greement between Locke and Kant, Kealism and Idealism, 
it would not impair my proposition. For if innate ideas 
be denied to the mind by any process of reasoning, its 
spontaneity must still be admitted, or else original ideas, 
inventions, and art would be impossible. An analysis of 
the process how man acquires knowledge affords us a 
clear insight into the mysterious laboratory. Here are 
facts perfectly mysterious and miraculous, and yet as plain 
as the seven colors of the rainbow. 

Every word spoken, if attention is paid to it, forms an 
idea in the hearer's mind. Speaking produces waves in 
the air in the same manner as a stone cast into the water 
forms successive rings on its surface. These waves reach 
your ear, penetrate to its labyrinth, excite nerve and 
ganglion, set certain brain fibres in a tremulous motion, 
and become ideas in your mind. How are airy waves 
transformed into ideas ? In speech as in music we hear 
no more than detached, simple sounds following one an- 
other in a more or less rapid succession; and yet the 
mind forms of these detached sounds, consecutive thoughts 
or melody, a complete story, argument, or harmonious 
and melodious music. Where or what is the mysterious 
force to produce the perfect unity of those detached 
sounds? Here are spontaneous processes of the mind, 
neither learned nor acquired, which produce ideas and a 
unity of ideas from mere detached sounds. 

The same Is the case with sight. The eye sees not the 
body which is the object of vision but the rays which the 
illuminated body reflects, and not all of them, indeed, but 
those which fall upon the cornea, and even some of these 
are reflected, while the others pass converged into the 
aqueous humor, then through the pupil, and impinge up- 
on the lens, traverse the viterous humor, and are brought 
to a focus upon the nervous tunic, the hind wall of the 
eye, and there, as it were, is photographed a small and 
exact but inverted image of the object seen. We pass by 
the wonders of this most complicated organ and the mys- 
tery, how by a particular composition and arrangement 



THE MIND'S RECEPTIVITY AND SPONTANEITY. 19 

of elementary matter, blind and thoughtless material is 
made to see and receive ideas, and consider for a moment 
the most mysterious facts of the process. How are ideas 
led to the mind by a few rays of light? You read a book 
i. e. you see certain rays oi light reflected from the page, 
and your mind receives at the same time the thoughts, 
the wisdom, the highest and deepest researches of Moses 
or Aristotle, king Solomon or Darwin. Where is the 
connection between your mind and the black spots on 
the page called letters ? Where is the connection between 
those black spots on the one hand and the author's mind 
on the other? 

The same inexplicable mystery follows the act of vision 
throughout life. You see material objects, they pass away, 
but their images, the ideas, are retained in the mind. 
How can the objects seen form an idea in the mind? 
How are material objects transformed in a twinkle of the 
eye into ideas which are purely mental? How does the 
mind retain or reproduce them at various times, compare, 
classify, and unite them to general conceptions ? From 
Aristotle to this day, the philosophers have attempted in 
vain the final solution of this mystery, and yet the same 
mystery precisely attaches to every corporeal sense and 
each sensation. 

You see if Locke and the realists maintain that we ar- 
rive at the knowledge of our knowledge and its elements 
by sensation they have explained nothing, for they must 
stop short before the mystery of sensation and the un- 
known transformation of material objects into purely 
mental ideas. 

Our theory, however, explains the matter as far as this 
is possible. We maintain, the mind is the apparatus 
which by its innate capacities, ideas themselves, receives 
and produces ideas. External objects, internal feelings, 
emotions and affects are mere impulses, or if you please 
symbols, to the mind, to set in motion corresponding 
ideas present in the mind. Without these impulses the 
mind would not form those ideas, i. e. it would not be- 
come conscious thereof; but then it would form others 
and similar ones; it would work upon the images of phan- 
tasy as children and ignorant persons often do, but think 
it must as the sun must shine. Therefore persons of two 
or even one corporeal sense do think, as experience teach- 
es, and are capable of education. 

As*far, then as we know by experience, the mind de- 
pends not in all cases on the senses, for the knowledge of 
its knowledge and the elements thereof. It possesses 



20 THE COSMIC GOD. 

knowledge and exercises functions independent of the 
senses. The senses, however, depend on the functions of 
the mind. We know that the eye sees not the ohjects of 
sight. It could possibly see the image momentarily im- 
pressed on the nervous wand; but this is exceedingly 
dimunitive, flat and inverted, the very thing which we 
see not ; hence the eye sees not ; it is a mere instrument 
for another apparatus of vision, as the spectacles, the 
microscope and telescope are artificial eyes for the eye. 
The optic nerve, the ganglia and the brain fibres, in the 
cavity of the head beyond the reach of light, certainly 
can not see, as there can be no vision without light. 
Hence the legitimacy of the question, what sees ? I have 
knocked at the door of all physicists and physiologists 
and none gave me a satisfactory answer, what sees ? 
Therefore I could only fall back upon our theory, the 
mind sees. Every body almost knows that many a day 
a number of objects and persons pass his sight without 
his notice, and the same is the case with hearing and all 
other sensations ; because he paid no attention to them, 
because his mind did not see or hear, it was otherwise en- 
gaged, and none can think two ideas at the same time. 

How does the mind see or hear and retain the objects 
perceived ? or in other words, how is matter transformed 
into purely mental ideas? Matter becomes perceptible 
to the senses by its qualities, i. e., by the ideas which it 
represents. Each quality is an idea. Thus every object 
represents a number of ideas which it embodies. The 
mind perceives not matter itself, but the simple ideas 
which it represents, and combines them, to a unit identi- 
cal with the object of sensation, as shaped by the imagi- 
nation. The intelligence then forms the word and the 
imagination the corresponding picture. Therefore we 
cannot perceive chaos, it represents no ideas ; and where 
but one idea presents itself, as in the air, we see nothing 
except this one idea. 

How does the mind know that the word and picture 
thus formed are correct, identical with the object. Here 
come in Kant's a priori Begriffe, or Locke's innate capaci- 
ties of the mind to know truth, together with my criter- 
ion of truth. Matter is not transformed into mind, for 
we perceive only the ideas which it embodies. The same 
is the case not only with all sensual intuitions, but also 
with all internal sensations, feelings, emotions, and affects 
of which we become conscious only if the mind forms the 
ideas to which they give the impulse; if we T know not 
pain, we have none; if weknow not joy, we feel none. 



THE MIND'S RECEPTIVITY AND SPONTANEITY. 21 

You see, ladies and gentlemen, the great problem, how 
do we obtain our knowledge, how do we come to know 
what we know, can be solved only by the word mind. 
The mind with its capacities of receptivity and sponta- 
neity accounts for our knowledge. It might be urged, 
that all animals must possess mind, which we have no 
reason here to deny or discuss.' I will investigate this 
subject in another lecture. Here I must yet say in con- 
clusion, that materialists have attempted another solu- 
tion of this problem; but I discuss this in the next lec- 
ture. To foreshadow coming arguments, I call your at- 
tention to the following passage in Prof. Tydall's Inaugu- 
ral Address called " Advancement of Science " (New York 
edition, page 49 : 

14 Thus far our way is clear, but now comes my diffi- 
culty. Your atoms are individually without sensation, 
much more are they without intelligence. May I ask 
you, then, to try your hand upon this problem. Take 
your dead hydrogen atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, 
your dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen atoms, your 
dead phosphorus atoms, and all the other atoms, dead as 
grains of shot, of which the brain is formed. Imagine 
them seperate and sensationless ; observe them running- 
together and forming all imaginable combinations ; this 
xis a purely mechanical process, is seeable by the mind. 
But can y # ou see, or dream, or in any way imagine, how 
out of that mechanical act, and from these individually 
dead atoms, sensation, thought, and emotion are to arise? 
You speak, of the difficulty of mental presentation in my 
case; is it less in yours? I am not all bereft of this 
Yorstellungs-kraft of which you speak. I can follow a 
particle of musk until it reaches the olfactory nerve; I 
can follow the waves of sound until their tremors reach 
the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths and Cor- 
ti's fibers in motion ; I can also visualize the waves either 
as they cross the eye or hit the retina. Nay, more, I 
iim able to follow up to the central organ the motion 
thus imparted at the periphery, and to see in idea the 
very molecules of the brain thrown into tremors. My 
insight is not baffled by these physical processes. What 
baffles me, what I find unimaginable, transcending every 
faculty I possess — transcending, I humbly submit, every 
faculty you possess — is the notion that out of those phy- 
sical tremors you can extract things so utterly incongru- 
ous with them, as sensation, thought, and emotion. You 
may say, or think, that this issue of consciousness from 
the clash of atoms is not more incongruous than the 



22 THE COSMIC GOD. 

flash of light from the union of oxygen and hydrogen. 
But I beg to say it is. For such incongruity as the flash 
possesses is that which I now force upon your attention. 
The flash is an affair of consciousness, the objective coun- 
terpart of which is a vibration. It is a flash only by our 
interpretation. You are the cause of the apparent in- 
congruity; and you are the thing that puzzles me. I 
need not remind you that the great Leibnitz felt the dif- 
ficulty which I feel, and that to get rid of this monstrous 
deduction of life from death he displaced your atoms by 
his monads, and which were more or less perfect mirrors 
of the universe, and out of the summation and integra- 
tion of which he supposed all phenomena of life — sen- 
tient, intellectual,' and emotional — to arise. Your diffi- 
culty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, is quite as 
great as mine. You can not satisfy the human under- 
standing in its demand for logical continuity between 
molecular processes and the phenomena of consciousness. 
This is a rock on which materialism must inevitably split 
whenever it pretends to be a complete philosophy of life." 



MIND OR BRAIN. 23 



LECTURE III. 



MIND OR BRAIN. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — If a stranger coming to this 
city should not know its name, and on inquiry be told 
by every body asked, it is Cincinnati, he would certainly 
be obliged to believe it on account of the common consent 
pointing to a fact otherwise probable. In case, however, 
that stranger should dispute the fact, it would be his 
task to prove that all his informants were in error. We 
Cincinnatians would only say, ask any "body else and he 
will tell you that this is Cincinnati. The same precisely 
is the case with the materialistic hypothesis, " The brain 
thinks." The vastest majorities of all civilized and half 
civilized nations, ancient and modern, and among them 
the most prominent men of all ages of authentic history 
have believed and established philosophically, " The 
mind thinks," hence the materialist denying this must 
furnish the evidence in support of his theory. 

Besides we know already that every natural object pre- 
sents itself to human cognition by the ideas, inherent in 
the object represented. So there is ideality, or spirit- 
uality, if you please,in every natural object, or else man 
could not possibly conceive it. 

Again, if man is the object of our observation, we must 
hold up steadily before our mind, two distinct kinds of 
qualities. 

He presents to us bodily qualities and peculiarities, by 
which we know him as a material object— and a charact- 
er; he is kind, generous, magnanimous, unselfish, heroic, 
pious, moral, sympathetic, intelligent, genial, loving, 
amiable, wise or otherwise, and in all that we contem- 
plate qualities which have not the least similarity to the 
qualities of matter. We contemplate his mental and 
moral character, and each of us is conscious that he is in 
possession of similar qualities. Therefore if the materi- 
alist denies mind, it is for him to prove that the qualities 
which make the particular character of man are inherent 
in matter, and having succeeded in this, he must prove, 



24 THE COSMIC GOD. 

that the qualities of matter are material, and not idealis- 
tic or spiritualistic, as we maintain ; and having succeed- 
ed in all this, he must furnish us at least with a probable 
theory of sensation, perception, conception, and cognition; 
which all materialists admit, they can not do. 

It is not my intention to discuss here this problem in 
all its bearings ; I restrict my remarks to the simple 
proposition: Materialism with its physical, mechanical, 
and chemical laws does not and can not account for the 
knowledge of our knowledge and its elements ; and 
wherever the attempt is made, it takes invariably the ef- 
fect for the cause. Physiological functions, which are 
evidently effects of some cause, are invariably and un- 
philosophically held up as causes of that, of which they 
appear as effects, and must appear so to the strictest 
scientist. 

Please cast a glance upon this keynote of all material- 
istic physiology : — u The brain is the seat and organ of 
thought," — Mr. Buechner exclaims: "Its quantity, form, 
and chemical peculiarities are in direct proportion to the 
greatness and force of its mental functions." 

If all this were true, as it is not, it would prove just as 
well, that the brain is the organ of the thinking mind, 
which, in proportion to its greatness and force, provides 
itself with an adequate organ, as the organic force pro- 
vides a stomach for the animal adequate to its bulk. Or 
it would prove that in proportion with the mind's activity 
of any individual, the blood supplies the brain, which 
accordingly increases in bulk, improves in shape, and ab- 
sorbs from the blood the best molecules for its purpose, 
as do the blacksmith's arms or the mountaineer's legs. 
In both cases, however, mind is the cause and brain the 
effect. No physiologist has examined the brain before 
it thought and then observed its stages of improvement 
with the progression of mind, to establish scientifically 
upon facts observed, how thoughts and judgments grow 
out of certain brain cells, filled up or divided in the pro- 
cess of growth. But if that could be done, we would 
still be ignorant on the point of cause, for we would have 
effects only. The brain is not its own cause, that is cer- 
tain; and if it were only the cause of thought, it must be 
able to contemplate itself, as is evidently the nature of 
mind; yet nobody knows his own brain or could ever 
contemplate it except by comparison with other brains. 
We maintain, the action of the brain has a cause and is 
an effect; and the materialist maintains, it is a causeless 
cause, certainly in all spontaneous thoughts and original 
ideas. It is an anomaly. 



MIND OR BRAIN. 25 

How does the materialist arrive at his brain hypothe- 
sis? By comparison of the human brain with that of 
animals, and various human brains among themselves. 
Let us see what the facts are. The quantity of brain is 
no proof of superior intellect, for the whale's brain, ac- 
cording to Rudolph i, weighs five and one-third pounds, 
two pounds more thapn the largest human brain; and the 
•elephant, according to Perault, carries nine pounds of 
brain in his skull. Still nobody maintains that those 
animals are man^ equal in intelligence. E. Wagner has 
given the subject a thorough investigation, and has tab- 
ularized the brains of a thousand persons according to 
weight. It was discovered that Cromwell, Byron, and 
Cuvier had the heaviest brains, although none will seri- 
ously maintain that they were the most intellectual men; 
and far below them in weight are classed some of the most 
eminent reasoners. If the big head would make the wise 
man. thenthe hatter must be the best judge of human 
intelligence. The proportion of brain weight to human 
intelligence must evidently be dropped. - 

Xext comes the proportion of brain to the bulk of the 
body, which they say decides the intelligence. Man has, 
:in proportion to his body, the heaviest brain. So the 
materialists, with due politeness, save female intelligence, 
as woman's brain is lighter than man's, but it is in pro- 
])ortion to her body. If that proportion were true, then 
man stands below many little birds in the scale of intel- 
ligence; and according to Cuvier, also below several 
families of monkeys, whose brain stands in proportion 
to their bodies as one to twenty-eight, one to twenty-four, 
or even one to twenty-two ; while with man the relation 
is as one to thirty, or even thirty -five. Unfortunate in 
this direction is the observation of Tolkman, that the 
smallest and young animals have relatively the largest 
brains, so that in animals there is no proportion between 
intellect and the size of the brain; consequently every 
conclusion of this kind from animal to man is certainly 
illegitimate. AYorse than this are the simple facts well 
known of bees, wasps, ants, and spiders, which have no 
brain at all, and yet their intelligence is admired. If 
the nerve-knots of those little creatures secrete intelli- 
gence, then it is independent of brain anyhow. 

It must be remarked here that the proportion of the 
.spinal column to the diameter of the brain also is not in 
favor of man, for in man this proportion is as seven to 
one, and in the dolphin, according to Cuvier, as thirteen 
to two, or as six and eleven-twelfths to one according to 
Thiedman. 



26 THE COSMIC GOD. 

Next comes the argument derived from the proportion 
of the cerebellum to the cerebrum and its convolutions. 
Weight, we have seen, decides nothing. Still it is main- 
tained that man's cerebrum, having the most and deep- 
est convolutions, and being so much larger in proportion 
to the cerebellum, than in any animal, therefore man 
possessee so much more intellectual power. Longet, how- 
ever, states plainly that, according to Cuvier's and 
Leuret's results in this research, the proportion of cere- 
brum to cerebellum is no reliable phenomenon, as this 
would place man intellectually on a level with the ox 7 
and even below the Sapaju. 

In regard to the convolutions it must be remarked 
that an ancient physician, Erasistratus, maintained that 
convolutions are more numerous in man's brains than in 
any other, because man possesses intelligence and the 
animal does not. Galenus, however, refutes this hypoth- 
esis; he shows that the brain of the ass has numerous 
convolutions without bearing any particular reputation 
for prominent intelligence. Leuret fc and Gratiolet, who 
gave this matter particular attention, show that many 
mammals, standing intellectually as high as others, have 
no convolutions in the brain; and Leuret especially de- 
nies the whole theory based upon the convolutions. But 
suppose the fact established that the most intellectual 
beings show the most and deepest convolutions of the 
brain, what does it amount to ? Certainly no more than 
this, that the activity of the intellect leaves its impress 
on the brain. Convolutions can not think, since they 
are nothing but empty furrows which work no change in 
the internal construction of the brain. 

What is the actual value of the whole argument tak- 
en from the morpholog}^ of the brain ? It is intended to 
prove that man's superior intellect is observeable in the 
superior construction of his brain, consequently the 
brain is the cause of the intelligence. But the first mem- 
ber of the proposition is by no means certain, as we have 
seen man's brain can not boast of any distinction so 
marked as to account for his superior intelligence. If it 
did actually bear all the morphological distinction claimed 
it would still not be established that the brain is the 
cause of intelligence. It would not lead one step beyond 
our starting-point, unless it be proved that brain matter 
secretes thought, that the purely material substance 
brings forth the purely mental thought, or in other words 
that matter is changed into mind. And also then the 
question would arise, whether the mind flashing forth 



MIND OR BRAIN. 27 

from the action of organic matter is not an individual 
dynamic force, self-existing and imperishable. 

Driven fnom morphology, the materialist resorts to 
chemistry and pathology to make good his assertion. It 
is the peculiar chemical composition which constitutes 
the superiority of the human brain. Commonly brain 
contains seventy-five and one-half per cent, of water, sev- 
en per cent, albuminous matter, eleven and one-half per 
cent, of fat, one and one-half per cent, of phosphoric, 
and four and one-half per cent. of other salts. 
The proportion of these constituents varies in different 
brains. The brains of insane persons were -found de- 
creased in weight as low as two pounds, and the salts, 
especially phosphoric acid, were much exhausted. There- 
fore Moleshot exclaimed, "No thought without phosphor- 
us." Liebig contradicted it; and Bibra, who made this 
point a special study, refuted the whole chemical theory, 
as practical physicians of insane asylums did with the 
pathological point. Phosphoric acid is a compound of 
phosphorus and oxygen, hence no thought without oxy- 
gen. This is indeed too trivial and frivolous a point to 
be discussed. For after we know full well the chemical 
constituents of every brain, we have not yet the remotest 
idea how elementary matter so arranged and mixed can 
think. "We still deal in effects, and bandage our eyes to 
the cause. After we know all pathological effects on the 
brain, we are no wiser than before, because we know not 
the cause which produces the degeneracy of the brain. 

You see, ladies and gentlemen, there is not one estab- 
lished point in morphology, chemistry, or pathology 
which justifies the assertion that the brain thinks without 
a dynamic force at its foundation for which it is the or- 
gan. Let us now see whether any thinking person can 
form a clear and intelligent idea how the brain thinks. 
The sensations, by the aid of the senses, nerves, and 
ganglia, impress, or rather imprint upon the brain images 
which represent ideas, so that there are as many im- 
prints on the tissues of the brain as we have ideas, re- 
ceived through the senses from without or the feelings 
from within. This is the materialistic theory of sensa- 
tion, which, in my opinion, is as unphilosophical as it is 
unscientific. It rests neither upon facts observed nor up- 
on any sort of legitimate speculation. For in the first place 
the mind is not passive to receive impressions as wax or 
plaster of Paris. If the mind makes no assertion, pays 
no 'attention, it receives no impressions by the senses. 
And in the second place, not one impression of the brain 



28 THE COSMIC GOD. 

has been microscopically examined «and identified with 
any idea whatever ; still this alone would justify the 
theory and give it a scientific aspect. "The facts of 
phrenology, as far as they are established, prove nothing 
in this direction, and are entitled to no other legitimate 
conclusion than this : Either particular faculties of the 
mind require certain inborn brain organs through which 
to operate, or those faculties by exercise and exertion de- 
velope certain brain parts more fully and prominently. 

The theory fares worse, the closer we inspect and ana- 
lyze it. Unphilosophical minds imagine the whole pro- 
cess a sort of telegraph without telegraphist. The sen- 
ses telegraph their impressions to the brain via the sen- 
sory nerves, and the brain telegraphs back its decision 
and will via the motory nerves. They do not trouble 
themselves with the questions, how colors, odors, feel- 
ings, or even sounds can be telegraphed, or where the 
battery has been discovered, how it is fed, and excited to 
action by sensations, feelings or volitions. But they go on 
and say, that every sensation makes its imprint on the 
brain, to remain there until crowded out by others, when 
the former are forgotten. It never occurs to their minds, 
that the supposed telegraphing process actually explains 
nothing and is a mere play on words; for after all the 
making and retaining of the impressions in the brain 
and their appearance in the consciousness are no less 
wonderful and unaccounted for than without the tele- 
graphing hypothesis. 

Let us examine a little closer. The particles of the 
body, hence also of the brain, are subject to perpetual 
change. According to modern experiments, the whole 
body, every particle thereof, is completely changed in 
every two years. Tnerefore one should think, that the 
brain atoms with all impressions on them are subject to 
the same change. Now, if one or more atoms in a man's 
brain bear the image of his wife, the atom or atoms being 
gone two years after his marriage, the brain record being 
wiped out, that man must not only forget that he ever 
was married, but he must be incapable of recognizing 
his wife. Yet memory le'ads us back to the very morn 
of childhood, the dawn of consciousness, and no honest 
man forgets his wife, or his obligations. 

Says the materialist, the particles change but not the 
individual ; the form, the morphe, remains unchanged so 
also the brain impressions, although small scars on the 
skin will certainly disappear altogether. Let us see, how 
that is possible. . The impression must be somewhere in 



I»IIND OR BRAIN. 29 

in the brain, and the particle or atom bearing it must leave 
some time, to be replaced by another deposited there by 
the blood. We can only imagine the parting atom has 
the politeness or kindness, to inform its successor of the 
particular record which it bears. But then every atom 
must be intelligent, and man has as many souls as his 
brain has atoms. The elementary matter of the brain 
differing in no wise from other matter, it follows that all 
atoms are intelligent ; ergo the universe consists of intel- 
ligent atoms, or to speak intelligibly, say, what we ideal- 
ists call matter, is imaginary only, it is all intelligence, 
all mind; |he universe is an e pluribus unum, a conglom- 
eration of atomistic minds, each very small, of course, but 
with some extension after all. The only difficulties are, 
to account for irrationality of inorganic matter, and the 
harmony in the cosmos of those infinite numbers of in- 
telligence atoms. Is this absurd enough to refute itself? 

Look upon the matter from another point, if you please. 
Man has judgment. No materialist denies this. Judg- 
ment, so to say, presides over the ideas, compares, com- 
bines, or separates them, hears their testimony, and dis- 
tinguishes between truth and error, right and wrong, 
good and evil, etc. This is evidently no offspring of sen- 
sual intuition. Where in the brain is that judgment? 
Says the materialist, it is in the brain center, in the sen- 
sorium, as though science could furnish any knowledge 
about it, anatomical, physiological, chemical, mechanical 
or physical. Still let us suppose for a moment, there is 
such a thing actually as a brain center or sensorium gift- 
ed with the function of judgment. It can be no vacuum 
hence it must consist of one or more atoms gifted with the 
capacity of judgment. Science has no knowledge of such 
atoms. Plato had his ideas, Liebnitz his monades, the 
dualist his soul, and the materialist his particular atoms 
gifted with judgment ; where is really the difference ? 

But there comes in again the fact of perpetual change 
of matter, the tissue metamorphosis, inseparable from 
organic life. Now the question is simply this, are those 
judgment atoms also liable to this process or are they 
not. If they are not, then we have in man an imperish- 
able, intelligent judgment — gifted something, not liable 
to change, which the materialist calls a particular atom 
and we call it mind, spirit, soul; the thing is the same, 
and our dispute is amicably settled, But if judgment 
atom or atoms are subject to the same law as others, 
they must be replaced from time to time by the blood, 
i. e. the blood must prepare those particular atoms and 



30 THE COSMIC GOD. 

deposit them at the right time in the proper place. Then 
the judgment is in the blood, which the brain can neither 
control nor direct, its circulation being independent of the 
brain action. But the blood depends on stomach and 
lung, hence the seat of judgment is in the stomach and 
in the lung. But these two organs depend on food and 
atmosphere for ail atoms received and sent to the blood : 
ergo the seat of judgment is in the food and the atmos- 
pheric air. I hope Prof. John Tyndal will comprehend the 
absurdities, in which atomism must finally land. 

Last though not least, the original question turns up 
again; viz: if we admit all alleged facts and conclusions 
of materialism, how do we know that what we know is 
true? All human senses, as physical apparatuses, are 
notoriously defective; we know that they are, and justly 
mistrust them. They do not perceive all phenomena in 
nature, nor do they always perceive correctly. Therefore 
we must assist our senses with various instruments, and 
also control one by another. Then the sensory nerves 
lead the sensations to the brain. Are they reliable ? 
We know no difference of texture of the optic, auditory 
and olfactory nerves, although their functions are so en- 
tirely different; how can we know the reliability of the 
nervous function ? We know they are subject to changes 
and impairing influences, and like the senses they can be 
vastly improved by practice. Where is the certaint} 7- , 
that the nerves lead correctly the images of sensation to 
the brain ? There is none. Then the brain itself is not 
excepted from all those deficiencies. Imagination over- 
powers it, and it sees, hears, feels, or smells nonentities. 
Sleep overcomes it and it dreams fictions. In a state of 
hallucination it takes phantasmagories for realities. A 
glass of wine changes its function. Where is the guar- 
antee, that senses, nerves, ganglia, and brain perceive 
correctly? There is none. Imperfect organs can not 
form perfect ideas. The common consent of many or all, 
in this relation, proves nothing, as all are the same men 
with the same deficient organs of sensation. If one su- 
perior to man would assure us that we see the things 
correctly: we might be induced to believe him ; but if we 
tell one another, it amouuts to nothing in reality. 

Here evidently intelligence, mind is necessary, to con- 
trol senses, nerves, ganglia, and brain, to judge and cor- 
rect the sensual intuitions. This is the ultimatum; 
either it must be admitted, the mind controls and cor- 
rects the sensual intuitions, or it must be confessed, that 
all science, mathematics included, is uncertain, and unre- 



MIND Oil BRAIN. 31 

liable. Xo sound reasoner will admit this latter alterna- 
tive; therefore the knowledge of our knowledge and its 
elements necessitates us to acknowledge the existence of 
mind. 

We have now the whole force of circumstantial evi- 
dence on the side of the mind as the bearer of intelligence, 
and could dismiss this subject. We have found a starting 
point to our system: There is mind. But I mean to go 
beyond this, and seek conclusive and final evidence for 
our postulate, and then build upon it deductively a sys- 
tem of philosophy as far and as well as I am capable* of 
solving the problems. 



32 THE COSMIC GOD. 



LECTURE IV. 



HUMAN MIND ACTUALIZED IN ITS MONUMENTS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — The scientist tells us, this- 
material universe consists of matter and force, without 
confessing that we know not, to any degree of certainty, 
outside of the mind's final decisions, whether their qual- 
ities are in matter or in the mind which thinks them. 
Again the absolute nature of force is beyond the present 
powers of experimental science. We call force any cause 
which produces or tends to produce a change in a body's 
state of rest or motion, and define its statical or dynami- 
cal measure, without any knowledge of the substance or 
quodity of force. Still we speak with perfect certainty of 
the existence of gravitation, cohesion, elasticity, chemical 
affinity, and the other forces, because we observe their 
influences on matter and the changes produced; and the 
mind is certain of the law of causality. 

I will not trouble you now with an examination of the 
law of causality, although I will have to do it some other 
time; I will merely call your attention, in the first place, 
to two points: 

1. We have no knowledge of the substance of any 
natural force, and no empiric knowledge of the existence 
of any. 

2. Postulating the law of causality we arrive induct- 
ively at the cod elusion that any force exists, because it is 
actualized in a phenomenon. 

Take away point second, and science is impossible; 
especially as the main object of all science is to discover 
the laws of nature by the guiding compass of the law of 
causality. ■' 

Please, ladies and gentlemen, let us change terms for 
a little while. Let us put mind in place of force, and 
call it mind-force. Then let us put in place of the phy- 
sical such mental phenomena in which mind-force is 



MIND OR BRAIN. 33 

actualized. Let us contemplate those monuments in 
which the human mind has become permanently objec- 
tive, and I expect we shall arrive at the conclusion : — 

By the application of the strictest scientific method, 
basing upon the law of causality, to the monuments of 
the human mind, its existence is proved beyond a doubt. 

Which are the main monuments or mental phenomena 
in which the human mind has become permanently objec- 
tive? I answer: language, history, art, science, religion, 
and philosophy. 

In the various (about twelve hundred) languages the. 
spirit of man has become objective, crystalized, photo- 
graphed, concrete, and tangible. Whatever a nation 
thought, felt or did, the character, intelligence, occupa- 
tion, aspiration, ethical and aesthetical feelings, the whole 
of man of every age and clime is portrayed in the nation's 
dialect or dialects. Every language contains the history 
of its originators. 

It has been asserted that animals, and birds, especially, 
have the use of language, to which, I must add, they pos- 
sess the capacity of uttering certain sounds which were 
erroneously called language. These are simply vowel 
sounds, which do not go beyond the interjection. This 
is not language. Han utters four kinds of sounds, com- 
monly called screaming, whistling, singing and speaking, 
of which the latter only consists of articulate sounds. 
Host of the animals scream, some, and especially birds, 
whistle; very few of them possess the capacity of singing 
rythmical melody. In all cases the utterances consist of 
simple vowel sounds, without discernable consonants. 
Man only possesses all the capacities of uttering sounds, 
and produces language by the combination of vowels with 
consonants ; which no animal does. 

Syllables are vowels encased in consonants, and every 
language consists of its syllables; therefore man alone 
possesses language. There are physiological causes for 
this phenomenon, which I can not explain now. 

The main characteristic of language is, the almost in- 
finite combinations of about twenty-five consonantal 
sounds with the vowels. Language, you see, is combina- 
tion, the offspring of judgment, to express intelligibly 
man's ideas. The substance of language is not in the 
elementary sounds ; A B C is no language ; it is in the 
free combination thereof to express ideas. There is 
nothing material in it ; it is all actualized mind. In form 
language is grammatical, and must be so to be language. 
It must have substantive, verb, and adjective, subject, 
3 



34 THE COSMIC GOD. 

object, and copula, cases, persons, and tenses. The gram- 
matical form is as inseparable from the substance of lan- 
guage as form is from organic matter in any organism. 
Therefore it is certainly an error to speak of the lan- 
guage of animals. Still, in this connection, it could make 
no difference to us if animals had language. It would 
merely prove that animals must possess mind; and the 
superiority of human language would be the evidence of 
the superiority of the human mind. Anyhow language 
would be the monument of actualized mind. We claim 
no more. 

There are two mysteries connected with language which 
however, explain one another. I refer to the origin and 
and common intelligibility of language. How did men 
understand each other's sonnds? How do we understand 
one another? How are sounds or signs converted into 
ideas ? I know of but one reply to this query : The 
mind possesses the innate ability to form words for ob- 
jects, feelings, etc., and the necessity of representing them 
by sounds or signs. Therefore the word spoken or read 
excites the mind to form a corresponding idea, and the 
idea is instantly actualized in the word which caused it, 
so that every word heard or read with attention is the 
cause of the rise of the corresponding idea in the listening 
or reading subject. Therefore we do not retain words of 
which the mind has formed no definite idea, so that the 
word is actually dead. It is precisely the same as with 
sensation in general. The outward object can not enter 
the mind. It gives the impulse to the formation of a cor- 
responding idea in the mind, of which the imagination 
shapes the image, and the intelligence furnishes the 
word. 

It follows, therefore, that the mind makes words also, 
without having seen or heard them, as children and deaf 
mutes frequently make words of their own. The objects 
of sensation necessitate the mind to form ideas which 
must be marked by words. If we ask, how did language 
originate? The reply is simple and given correctly in 
the Bible. When Adam saw the various animals, his 
mind was necessitated to form ideas of them, which be- 
came images in his imagination and words in his intelli- 
gence. So language originated, man named objects, ac- 
tions, relations, feelings, and thoughts; and it is of divine 
origin only as far as man's mind is. The languages and 
dialects have their origin in the geographical separation 
of the various tribes. Also in this point the Bible ad- 
vances the correct idea. 



MIND OR BRAIN. 35 

Language is not the product of mechanical brain 
action. This is evident from the freedom in the choice 
of sounds and combinations to denote the same object in 
various tongues and dialects. There is no freedom im- 
aginable in connection with mechanical causes. If we 
even admit that the utterance of elementary sounds, as 
with animals, is the effect of mechanical brain action ; 
the combination of sounds to denote objects, etc., requires 
judgment, free choice, definite and conscious purpose, 
for which no kind of mechanism is imaginable. Ed. von 
Hartman commits the error of confounding the origin of 
a language with the origin of the words constituting it. 
AVords are produced consciously : the language is built 
up unconsciously by countless individuals who contri- 
buted to its wealth. It is no less an error, although 
Professor Steinthal also adopted it, that the feelings were 
the primary causes of language. The mechanical 
screams caused by feelings are simple interjections, 
whose signification is in the peculiarity of the sound, and 
not in the definite idea conveyed by any word ; and lan- 
guage consists of such words. The O ! or Ah ! may 
convey the idea of joy, pain, admiration, surprise, aston- 
ishment, longing, or almost any other feeling, depending 
altogether on the momentary sound. Men could never 
begin to understand one another by the tradition of the 
mere modulations of indefinite sounds. Only after a 
feeling or sensual impression had become an idea in the 
mind, the adequate word could have been formed, to 
rouse in other minds the corresponding idea, say of any 
tree, animal, or love, hatred, etc; not because tree or 
animal excited a feeling, but because it conveyed a num- 
ber of ideas to the mind of which it produced a unity in 
one word. The same process is observable in children. 
The origin of language can neither be thought nor im- 
agined without the prc-existence of judgment, hence of 
mind. 

Here then is a phenomenon, a grand effect purely 
mental. Here are your twelve hundred different lan- 
guages and dialects. Here are your libraries, the 
millions of books and manuscripts, containing the highest 
wisdom of man. Here are your inscriptions on stones, 
tombs, pyramids, bricks and coins, reaching clear back 
to the cradle of humanity. Here are facts without pre- 
cedent or parallel in organic or inorganic nature, grand, 
original, and eminently human, monuments in which 
hnman mind has become objective in such incalculable 
quantity, that we can think of no number to designate 



36 THE COSMIC GOD. 

the ideas crystalized therein. la these monuments the 
objectivity of the human mind stands before our intelli- 
gence as clear, undeniable, doubtless, concrete, and tan- 
gible as static or dynamic force in any physical phenom- 
enon of daily occurrence ; and no naturalist can justly 
tell us that our induction from mind-phenomena is less 
legitimate or less certain than his induction of force from 
physical phenomena. 

The next monument of the actualized mind is history. 
History is the term under which we understand a narra- 
tive of the experience of the human family; what man 
did and suffered, established and destroyed, gained and 
lost, together with all means employed against uproar- 
ious and destructive elements, his combat against hostile 
and ferocious beasts, his wars, defeats, victories, the .en- 
tire life, ^developement, progressions, retrogressions, and 
triumphs of the human race, in which the fates and ex- 
periences of individuals, tribes, and nations, and the 
records of 'governments, churches, institutions, sciences, 
arts, and philosophy are like the members of one grand 
organism, each of which is inseparable from the whole, 
which is an organic unit. The substance of history is 
the human mind actualized, and all institutions are its 
framework. JMind-force has produced myriads of mental 
phenomena, which, in their totality, are the history of 
the human race. 

If we go back three centuries only in this country, we 
have "before our mind an unbroken wilderness of forests 
and prairies from ocean to ocean, with a few thousand 
sons of the desert, who fought the same battles against 
the elements and beasts, as thousands of years ago the 
whole human family did. All were like the savage In- 
dians and in much lower conditions, still more helpless 
as we come down to the stone age, although not all at 
the same time precisely. If now we compare our flour- 
ishing country with its free government, its laws, insti- 
tutions, farms, gardens, villages, cities, works of art and 
genius, highways, canals, railroads, industry, commerce, 
prosperity, security, peace, and confidence, to the state 
of affairs three hundred years ago, we have an index to 
the history of mankind, which took probably five thous- 
and to six thousand years to pass through all those 
phases of developement, to reach the culture and civili- 
zation of the nineteenth century. 

In history, we behold the human mind crystalized in 
deeds. Just think of the vast amount of thought ex- 
pended, of inventions made, of schemes and projects- 



MIND OR BRAIN. 37 

proposed, of calculations and combinations spun out, 
before the soil was conquered for the plough, the forces 
and materials of nature subjected to human hands, and 
man was sufficiently cultivated to govern himself and 
the objects of physical nature. It is uncountable, incal- 
culable, almost infinite ; and yet every idea is permanent, 
and the best ones, are imperishable in history, as the 
atoms of this physical world. As this earth consists of 
its atoms by the inherent force of cohesion, so history 
consists of innumerable ideas coherent by their internal 
force of psychical affinity, which we will call the Genius 
of History. As the coal fields now utalized, contain in 
the materialized form, the heat issuing, many thousands 
of years ago, from the sun, and combining with the car- 
bon ; so the original ideas of all individuals and ages 
were actualized, so to say materialized, to be preserved 
intact as the ever progressive history of man. 

Every body almost knows, that there is at, the bottom 
of man's doings and omissions the law of self-preserva- 
tion and the preservation of the race, together with the 
social instinct, which man has in common with animals. 
But this explains not the Genius of. History ; for these 
animal qualities did not make history, did not produce 
the thoughts and inventions which are the substance of 
history; nor did they combine and connect them 'to the 
organic unit of cause and effect, as history presents, upon 
the pinnacle of which, as its last and legitimate result, 
appears the facit in the civilization and culture of this 
nineteenth century. Animals with those instincts, and 
in many instances demonstrably stronger than man's, 
offer no history and no material of history, with the 
slightest analogy to what we have just defined as man's 
history. One must forcibly and willfully bandage his 
mental eyes, if he maintains not to see, that physiological 
-causes, Darwinism or no Darwinism, can not and do not 
account for the history of man. Physical and mechani- 
cal causes are certainly out of question, where uncount- 
able millions of free agents, each working out his own 
destiny, first and foremost taking care of himself, sepa- 
rated in time and space, and mostly knowing nothing or 
little of one another, still work out one common destiny, 
one logos of history, one and the same end, aim and pur- 
pose of perpetual progression, and continual perfect- 
ation, a unit of purpose as is the earth a unit of 
atoms. Here physical and mechanical laws find no 
application. 

Therefore, I ask, what is at the bottom of the pyramid 



38 THE COSMIC GOD. 

of history? which is the force uniting the isolated ideas 
of all the millions to the one, incomparable and admir- 
able structure? Mind, mind, mind! there is no other 
answer, no other key to solve this mystery. It is mind- 
force which produces these phenomena and their most 
wonderful union. Here are the phenomena and induc- 
tion from them to their cause is certainly as legitimate 
here as in natural science. If scientists would study 
philology, in the modern sense of the term, and history 
more carefully, there could be no materialism. 

We must postpone the discussion of the other topics to 
our next lecture. Before we close, I must say, that here 
lies one fault, and it is a serious one of our American 
colleges and universities ; they neglect philology and 
history. The principle of immediate utility, concrete 
selfishness, advances materialism and superstition as the 
necessary extremes. Enlightened minds think clearly 
and independently; utilized brains are self-supporting 
machines. Students must be first enlightened minds, 
pillars of truth. 



MIND OR BRAIN. 39 



LECTURE V- 



HUMAN MIND ACTUALIZED IN ITS MONUMENTS. 
PART II. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — Let us spend a short time, 
in the conclusion of our subject, investigating the monu- 
ments in which human mind has become actualized , let 
us take into consideration art and science, religion and 
philosophy. None can think of the fine arts without con- 
necting them with talent, to construct a harmonious 
unit from elaborate details; or genius, to conceive har- 
monious unity spontaneously, neither of which can be 
conceived without the principle of mind, and a high 
degree of ideality therein. More even than the fine arts, 
the mechanical and useful arts, in connection with 
science, demonstrate the existence of mind, a power in 
man superior to all natural forces known to science. 

Linne advanced the hypothesis, the vegetable kingdom 
is the final cause of the earth. The graminivorous ani- 
mals were made to crop off the superfluous grass, the 
carniverous to limit the increase of the former, and man 
to keep the latter within proper "bounds. The only ques- 
tion not answered is, Why did the earth not limit the 
increase of plants by her own energies, and save the 
trouble of bringing forth man and beast? I have to add, 
if such was the intention of dame nature, then she made 
a grievous mistake, for man governs and exterminates 
not only most of the animals not specially useful to him, 
but also numerous families of the vegetable kingdom by 
the progress of agriculture, which gradually subjects the 
earth's habitable surface to the hands of man. 

If anything on this earth besides man was creation's 
final cause, then man frustrates that intention. The 
agriculturist or mariner, craftsman or mechanic, contin- 
ually counteracts the earth's primary designs, and gov- 
erns natural forces, as the lightning-rod bids defiance to 



40 THE COSMIC GOD. 

the shock of the electric current, steam to the force of 
gravitation, electricity to distance, optical instruments to 
the weakness of the eye, under the hands of man and his 
creative genius. True, the mind creates no material, 
but it brings forth ideas; it invents combinations, appro- 
priates and applies matter and is forces; it is creative 
power after all. 

By the practical arts, which reach far beyond the 
records of history, down into the stone age, man becomes 
free and makes himself the lord of the earth. As he 
progresses in scienee and art, he extends his dominion, 
increases his prosperity and comfort, enlarges his sphere 
of knowledge and enlightment, and subjects all things to 
his purposes. If there is anything in the book of Genesis 
which deserves more admiration even than Mr. Haeckel 
lavishes on the Mosaic account of creation, it is the 
blessing which, it is said there, the Creator bestowed on 
man : "And subdue it (the earth), and have dominion 
over the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air," etc., 
which inspired the poet to sing the beautiful Psalm viii. 
Now, in this age of hydro-oxygen gas and electric light, 
of spectrum analysis, solar photography, microscopic and 
telescopic researches, now those words are intelligle to us. 
Yes, in this age of the Suez Canal, St. Go+hard and 
Pacific railroads, transmarine cables, swimming palaces 
on rivers and oceans, and flying mansions on terra-firma, 
we see clearly how the spirit of man has wrestled all 
night with the spectre of dark and dire necessity, and 
man has prevailed ; although lame yet, still the sun has 
risen, and he has prevailed. It hardly need be said any 
more than man's prosperity and progress depend on his 
success in the subjugation of matter and its forces to the 
creations of the mind, or that these successes are achieved 
with every passing day, as every intelligent child might 
know and even see it. 

Again, as it is the object of the practical arts to sub- 
due and govern matter and its forces, it is the object of 
science to discover the laws of nature which govern ele- 
ments aud forces, aud by incorporating them in man's 
consciousness, enlarge his sphere of knowledge, and en- 
lighten his understanding. Every new discovery is an 
idea added to the wealth of the mind, which discovers 
the law in the correlation of ideas and the constancy of 
phenomena. The more discoveries the better we are 
enabled to construct laws, and so much more thorough 
and complete is our knowledge of nature's secret labratory: 
and so much more is it ours, at our disposal, subject to 



MIND OR BRAIN. 41 

human mind. It is self-evident that man comprehends 
nature's elements, forces, and laws, and they comprehend 
him not; hence, he actually possesses them, and they pos- 
sess him not. 

Here we have an undeniable something, in both art 
and science, which is superior to nature's elements, 
forces, and laws. It understands them, and they under- 
stand him not, It possesses them, and they possess him 
not. It governs, applies, and modifies them to his ends 
and purposes. What is it, this nameless something? 
Science with all its excellency, achievements, and redeem- 
ing qualities, does not and can not tell us what it is, and 
yet it must admit that it is entirely different in its 
manisfestations from all objects which yield tp experi- 
mental science. It observes, discerns, discovers, analyzes, 
combines, and constructs laws ; it is intelligent. It 
applies and invents ; it 'is creative. It subjects, reigns, 
rules, governs ; it is will and power. Hence here is a 
nameless something, which is creative intelligence and 
motive will. What objection can any exact scientist have 
if we call it mind ? I know of no more appropriate 
name. Therefore, I maintain, art and science are the 
monuments of human mind, in which it is perpetually 
actualized. 



Mind reaches its loftiest and most lustrous objectivity, 
-when turned from the material universe, it plunges into 
its own mysterious depth and contemplates itself; then, 
by its unmeasurable buoyancy, it breaks through the 
narrow compass of self, soars aloft from truth to truth 
to the highest truth, through the dark regions of the 
phenomenal world, of cause and effect, to the region of 
eternal light, life, love and wisdom, where all which is, 
was, or will be, meets at the crystal fountain-head, dis- 
sonances vanish, and all elements and forms of existence 
melt into one grand harmony. There and then mind con- 
templates itself in the mirror of universal mind, and 
reaches the sublimity of self-consciousness, self-knowledge, 
a priori. This self-contemplation and self-elevation, 
guided by spontaneous inspiration, is religion ; guided 
by discoursive reason, it is philosophy. The verities 
which religion spontaneously produced, form the sub- 
stance to which philosophy gives form and unity. For- 
mal philosophy produces nothing ; it groups organically, 
proves and disproves, systematizes, shapes, forms, pro- 



42 THE COSMIC GOD. 

duces unity out of chaos, silences dissonances, and swells 
the accords of ideas to beautiful harmony.' In time 
philosophy always follows after religion. After a certain 
wealth of verities and errors had existence in conscious- 
ness, reason seized upon them to criticise, sift and con- 
truct organic systems. In the ancient treasures of man's 
religion, Bible or Koran, Yedas of Zendavesta, tradi- 
tional or documental, Aryan or Semite, or rather all of 
them, there is laid down avast amount of finished truth, 
in the most childlike form, without any attempt at formal 
reasoning, poured forth from the mind by spontaneous 
inspiration. There is evidently more than one method in 
the mind to arrive at truth, although we now tie our- 
selves down to the inductive mode of reasoning. Other 
generations follow other methods. 

It is so well established now that the religious element 
is in the human mind, history can not be ignored, that 
Mr. Darwin antedates it even down to his faithful dog, 
whose obedience, watchfulness, attachment, and venera- 
tion for his master he calls religion, exactly as he calls 
the emotional sounds of animals language, or, as I would 
call this white handkerchief the moon, because both of 
them reflect rays of light. All this is very sentimental 
of Mr. Darwin, but it is not true. It is certain that the 
dog sees his master ; that he sees in him anything be- 
sides shape, anything superior in quality and causality, 
is not merely .uncertain or improbable, it is impossible, 
because no animal possesses the power of abstraction, to 
the extent of separating qualities from material, effects 
from causes, external from internal attributes. Yet it is' 
at that very point where religion begins, where self-con- 
templation discovers, or supposes to have discovered, out- 
side of the self, being superior in quality and causality. 
Whether the savage then calls it ghost, spirit, demon, 
or God, of which he believes one or a legion ; in kind the 
idea is the same which leads the cultivated man to the 
knowledge and acknowledgement of one God. 

Again, that the dog is .attached to his master, is cer- 
tainly a fact ; that he feels veneration, is none. Venera- 
tion is a diagonal effect of love and fear, where neither 
are of a sensual nature. We venerate a person whose 
mental or moral qualities we love, and whose authority 
or influence we fear, all of which are abstract qualities, 
and the dog possesses not that power of abstraction. 
Yet veneration is the next primary element of religion. 

Anyhow, also according to Darwin, the religious ele- 
ment is in man in all stages and phases of his cultural 



MIND OR BRAIN. 43 

development. Then it is no less certain that spiritual 
self-consciousness is in man a priori, as he could not place 
outside of himself that which is not in him. Seeing 
spirit outside of himself, he must first have discovered 
and contemplated it, conscious or unconscious, in him- 
self, i. e., the spirit must first know its own existence 
must be self-conscious, before it can set itself, real or im- 
aginery, outside of itself. That which is no substance at 
all can not even be imagined. Therefore the most 
ancient ghosts among all nations, as it is still the case* 
among Chinese and others, are departed souls of human 
beings. 

In religion, therefore, in every phase of development, 
the mind first recognizes itself as a substantial being, and 
produces out of itself, by spontaneous inspiration, all the 
truths and errors of the various religions. Therefore in 
all religious monuments of history, mind has become 
permanently objective. It is in them that the mind has- 
stepped outside of itself, and stands photographed before 
the observer, so that no more evidence of its substan- 
tiality should be necessary, especially if we cast a cursory 
glance also upon philosophy. 

It is, indeed, a glorious and majestic exemplary of a. 
being, so small, so weak, so circumscribed in space and 
time as man is, if he spontaneously breaks through all 
limits of space and time, and in his consciousness, con- 
templation, and devotion, rises to the infinite, immense, 
eternal, and universal, above and beyond all things 
which the senses perceive, the imagination can depict, or 
the universe in its outward manifestations can impress ; 
when man by the mere necessity of his nature worships 
the God he contemplates. The materialist should at 
least feel induced to acknowledge, there is nothing like it 
in all the phenomena of this universe. 

Greater still, more sublime and more divine than in his. 
religion, man appears in his unbroken chain of philosophy 
from Job and the author of Koheloth down to Spencer and 
Hartman. The mind having soared through the infinite 
universe, returns into itself and seeks clearness, transpar- 
ency and certainty ; carves out new methods of thought, 
tries, sifts, compares, and contemplates everything to ar- 
rive at certainty. The insignificant little man who sits- 
in the corner of a narrow room, quiet, isolated, and 
speechless, hour after hour, and night after night, before 
a dim flame, penetrating with his mind's eye heaven and 
heaven's heaven, the mighty deep of creation's fathom- 
less sea, gazing upon the grand scheme of the universe^ 



44 THE COSMIC GOD. 

watching ana ..stening at the labratory of nature, to the 
nrysteries of existence, the harmony, beauty, and wis- 
dom of the boundless all, seeking and searching the 
proper formulas, to communicate and to prove all the 
greatness and glory which his mind has conceived ; — yes 
such a little man with the reflex of the universe in him, 
one should think must have a mind, something incom- 
parable to what we know by experimental science ; for 
he rises to the dignity of an infinite being in comparison 
to any and everything in this universe which we do 
Jinow. 

This, however, all philosophers do. They cease to be 
mortal beings, when the mind is engulfed in the con- 
templation of the universe. They are no longer in time 
when they contemplate eternity, no longer on earth when 
they penetrate endless space, no more perishable indi- 
viduals when engulphed in eternal Deity, as did prophet, 
theosophist or philosopher at all times. This ought to- 
convince the materialist that there are minds, as none 
has ever been able to discover the slighest difference in 
the organic machine of the greatest thinker and the most 
humble peasant. But there is mind. Hegel has given 
us a correct idea of philosophy which is the most won- 
derful chapter in the records of human deeds. It is vul- 
garly supposed, one philosophical school upsets what 
another had built up, and all turns in a sort of vicious 
circle. This is a mistake. With every onward step 
philosophy becomes more perfect and its field larger. 
JEach thinker is the heir of all his predecessors. What- 
ever we know and nnderstand now, is the mental work 
of previous thinkers, to which we add our own, however 
little it may be. We correct and increase continually. 
What was philosophy in Egypt three thousand and more 
years ago is now in the school-boy's text book and im- 
pregnates the air we breathe. And what is now profound 
philosophy for the select few, will be common property 
of all in a thousand or less years hence ; for intelligence 
now travels fast. Hence not merely minds, the mind is 
philosophical. 

Another vulgar error is, that philosophical speculation 
is all subjective, natural science alone is objective. Yet, 
if philosophy had not leveled the path, natural science 
could never* have come into existence. Philosophy, 
what do I say? Goethe m his morphology sees ahead 
of natural science to its present height. But this is 
not the point to be disposed of here. The philosopher 
of every age is the mere focus, in which the dispersed 



MIND OR BRAIN. 45 

rays of his generation's intelligence, meet in unity and 
harmony. JSTone did ever stand very high above his age, 
and none ever will. This is an acknowledged princi- 
ple in the philosophy of history. The philosopher com- 
prehends the ideas which are often unconscious in the 
multitude of his cotemporaries, expresses them intelligi- 
bly, unites them consciously to a system, to become a 
stepping stone to the Genius of History, pressing onward 
and forward, irresistibly and unceasingly. Therefore 
there are not only philosophical minds, there is mind. 

We can sum up thus : In language and history mind is 
actualized in countless monuments, each of which, is an 
actualization of ideas, which have no source outside of hu- 
man mind. In them, mind is objective in stereotyped 
deeds, and their systematical unity. In art and science, 
mind is actualized as inventive intelligence and governing 
will, apart of, and superior to, all forces known to the 
naturalist. In religion, mind recognizes, and places itself 
objectively outside of itself. In philosophy, mind con- 
templates itself in the universal mind, and inverts also 
the terms, so that the subjective becomes objective and 
vice versa. 

If one can possibly overlook the Logos of Language 
and the Genius of History, and comprehend not the 
monumental objectivity of the human mind; if one can 
go by the mighty achievements of science and art, the 
control and dominion which man assumes over tbe earth, 
its elements and forces, the power of mind which he 
manifests in his implements and machines, from the 
plough to the locomotive, steam ship, water works, opti- 
cal, physical, and mathematical instruments ; if in our 
days of thousand-fold triumph over matter and its for- 
ces, one can still doubt the existence of mind, let him 
try to doubt the mind which has become objective in the 
religious and ethical monuments of the human family, 
and which manifests itself perpetually and continually; 
and if he by some unknown means can do even this, let 
him try to account for the existence of philosophy with- 
out the existence of mind ; or, if you please, let him show 
sunlight without a sun, or an ocean without water. With- 
out mind, there nan be neither language nor history, 
neither art nor science, neither religion nor philosophy. 
These things are, and they are in and by man only ; 
therefore there is mind. Our problem is solved, my post- 
ulate is established " There is mind." Now I am ready 
to philosophize. 

As we shall philosophize inductively, let me say here 



46 THE COSMIC GOD. 

what induction signifies, or rather let us hear Victor 
Cousin on this point. He says : 

" Call to mind by what processes and upon what con- 
ditions we obtain a law in the physical order. When a 
phenomenon presents itself with such a character in such 
-circumstance, and when, the circumstance changing, the 
character of the phenomenon changes also, it follows that 
this character is not a law of the phenomenon; for this 
phenomenon can still appear, even when this character 
no longer exists. But if this phenomenon appears with 
the same character in a succession of numerous and di- 
verse cases, and even in all the cases that fall under the 
observation, we hence conclude that this character does 
not pertain to such or such a circumstance, but to the ex- 
istence itself of the phenomenon. Such is the process 
which gives to the physical philosopher and to the natu- 
ralist what is called a law. When a law has been thus 
obtained by observation, that is, by the comparison of a 
great number of particular cases, the mind in possession 
of this law transfers it from tho past to the future, and 
predicts that, in all the analogous circumstances that can 
take place, the same phenomenon will be produced with 
the same character. This prediction is induction : in- 
duction has for a necessary condition a supposition, that 
of the constancy of nature ; for leave out this supposi- 
tion, admit that nature does not resemble herself, and 
the night does not guarantee the coming day, the future 
oludes foresight, and there no longer exists anything but 
arbitrary chance : all induction is impossible. The sup- 
position of the constancy of nature is the necessary con- 
dition of induction ; but this condition being granted, 
induction, resting upon sufficient observation, has all its 
force." 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 47 



LECTURE VI. 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — Some men of learning and 
genius like Messrs. Vogt, Haeckel, Moleschott, Huxley, 
Darwin, Buechner and others, have imposed a hypothe- 
sis on science, which reduces man, on the scale of or- 
ganic beings, to an ape, casually and mechanically improv- 
ed, or some similar animal, no longer extant as a living 
organism or dead fossil, i. e. an imagined animal, one 
constructed by phantasy on the strength of induction, 
legitimate, or illegitimate, is supposed to have been the 
ancestor of man, and several kinds of apes. The mon- 
keys not having improved themselves from casual and 
mechanical causes unknown, are still irredeemable mon- 
keys. Some of them, however, having casually and 
mechanically gone through a series of improvements and 
changes, then by laws of inheritance and correlation 
have become human beings, and with tbem the history 
of mankind begins. Permit me to call this main hypo- 
thesis Homo-Brutalism, as it has hitherto been given no 
name at all. 

On the whole, this hypothesis is not based upon ac- 
knowledged facts; it rests upon an attempt of explaining 
the genesis of organic beings in a manner more agreeable 
to our understanding at the present altitude of natural 
science. It is altogether ingenious, and dependant upon 
supposed facts which may or may not turn up. Then again 
themain hypothesis rests upon a number of auxiliary hy- 
potheses, such as the combat for existence, sexual selection 
and law of correlation, each of which is without the 
least foundation in acknowledged and undisputed fact; 
so that one must believe in a long biological creed of 
numerous hypothetical articles, in order to be an ap- 
proved Darwinist. It aDpears to me, the whole theory 
of Darwinian transmutation is poetical, though beautiful 
still very uncertain. 1 discuss this point elsewhere. But 



48 THE COSMIC GOD. 

in regard to the genesis of man, the theory is an entire? 
failure, although repropped by Haeckel in a voluminous 
attempt of logical force. Haeckel is the logician and 
Huxley the scientist of that school. 

Poor man ! First the priest came with his indistinct 
notions of religion, or his cunning devices to establish 
and enforce his authority, and now science with a false 
face steps in, to rob man of his dignity, to place him ma- 
ny degrees below the dumb idol or among the beasts of 
the field, and to subject all to iron, relentless, cold, dead, 
and unreasoning Fate, casualty, dead mechanism. Free- 
dom and reason were set aside by the priest and man 
was made a helpless tool in the hands of powers beyond 
his control, a soulless slave of his priest, who was himself 
the tool of an idol or demon under the relentless absolu- 
tism of cold, dead, and iron Fate. This piece of heartless 
stupidity was found so convenient an instrument of gov- 
ernment, to oppress the masses and frighten them to 
blind obedience and groanless suffering, that rulers in com- 
mon with priests, where they were not' themselves the ru- 
lers, seized upon the terrifying falsehood and imposed it 
by all means at their command, until the human family 
was fairly divided into slaves and taskmasters. In Egypt 
as in India, in Greece as in Eome, with all the boasted 
civilization, two. thirds of all men were slaves or Pariahs, 
the living chatties of cunning and violent men; because the 
consciousness of man's dignity and pre-eminence was 
deadened, and blind Fate terrified him. 

Through the channel of Eome with her pernicious pol- 
icy, that piece of dogmatic poison was inherited by mod- 
ern nations in the form of original sin and universal deprav- 
ity, and a scheme of salvation based upon this error ; the 
same enemy to freedom and intelligence, the same night- 
mare to self-consciousness as the ancient fatalism. Man 
must be corrupt, depraved, wicked, abject, helpless, for- 
lorn, so that the priest can step in with his self-fabricated 
god or gods, and his dogmatic dodges, to cheat the devil 
out of the ignorant and deluded soul, kneeling blind and 
spell-bound before the terror stricken idols of his be- 
wildered imagination. True, the priest is also under the 
curse of the original sin and universal depravity; but he 
invents dogmatic subterfuges to prove conclusively, that 
he is not he; he is another fellow in the gown and another 
again outside thereof; that human reason, is not human 
reason, it is the devil's tricks; and man's moral feelings 
are not moral at all, unless he believes the priest's well- 
arranged hocus-pocus. In order that none publish the 
fraud, thousands of innocent fellows, rational thinkers, 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 49 

idealists, enthusiasts, and philanthropists, men, women, 
and chiidreen were slaughtered, burnt at the pyre, driv- 
en to misery and despair, or incarcerated in subterranean 
holes, by the thousands, yea, by the tens of thousands; 
philosophy and science, popular enlightenment and com- 
mon education were put under the ban, and the sword of 
worldly power executed Satan's terrible decrees. 

After men had been for centuries so thoroughly robbed 
of every consciousness of human dignity and pre-emin- 
ence, like a pack of frightened sheep, there stepped in the 
emperor, the king, the prince, the ruler, the nobility, all 
like the priest by the grace of God, and contracted a co- 
partnership with the successful priesthood, to fleece the 
sheep, to grow fat on the mutton, to trample under their 
feet the unpromising lambkin; to degrade, brutalize and 
enslave God's own image. Helpless man, without the free 
use of his reason, without reliance in his conscience, with- 
out consciousness of his dignity and pre-eminence, be- 
came a slave with body and soul. 

In spite, however, of all violence, wickedness, and cun- 
ningness, human nature could not be extinguished. Ever 
since Copernicus, Keppler, and Galileo gave us an idea 
of space, the priest's miniature gods became very small and 
insignificant, merely local magistrates, and the devil with 
his hell and ministering demons could be located no lon- 
ger. Then came Lord Bacon, and the Humanists, Des- 
cartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz, followed by a host 
of free and independent thinkers, defied priest and king 
in the name of soverign truth, and the morning dawned. 
Men were roused to a recognition of their own dignity 
and pre-eminence, and the revolutions came, in the Neth- 
erlands against bloody Spain, in Germany by downtrod- 
den peasants, in England under Cromwell and the Iron- 
sides, then in this country, in France, everywhere, so that 
we still live in the midst of revolutions, which will not 
end before man has gained his freedom and independence, 
the last crown, throne, and scepter shall be broken, the 
last monarch and the last priest of darkness shall have 
abjured their wicked occupations, man shall be re-instated 
in his rights, in the full consciousness of his dignity and 
pre-eminence as a man, reason, conscience, and freedom 
shall reign universally and forever. Proud, proud I say, 
down with that abject humility, proud man must be made, 
in order to become virtuous and wise in due self-respect. 
The- old slavery, contrition and creeping obedience must 
be banished out of him, to be a man again. 

So it came that on the benign fountain of philosophy 
4 



50 THE COSMIC GOD. 

and science, man began to recover. In the midst of un- 
counted millions of stupified and terrified people, who can 
not exist without a potentate and a priest — who must be 
fleeced, ruled, dandled, or whipped — there arose a power- 
ful intelligence, a self-conscious and enlightened element. 
It rose in broad daylight to proclaim man's emancipation 
from all authorities, his right to be free, and his duty io 
guard human dignity against all offenses. Man began to 
recognize himself and his fellow-man again in their true 
dignity and. pre-eminence, and a better future dawned. 
But alas! there comes false-faced science with its ventur- 
some hypotheses, the modern diseases of materialism and 
Darwinism, committing the same errors over again, places 
blind and irrational Fate on the throne of the God of wis- 
dom and love, pushes man back among the irrational 
brutes, deprives him of his dignity and preeminence, 
degrades, terrifies, and bewilders him. It is the same 
curse as ever, the same defiance of reason and philanthro- 
py as heretofore, the same retrogressive movement to 
bring misery on the human family. 

Look especially upon the Darwinian hypothesis. Man 
is an improved beast. His religion, ethics, and aesthetics, 
his domestic and social virtues; his intelligence and wis- 
dom, it is all brutal, only that some men have a little more 
of it than some brutes. Then the speculative scientist steps 
in and proves to you that it must be so; for there are the 
ant, the spider, the bee, and the beaver, which do things 
wonderfully wise; and here are the dog, the horse, the ele- 
phant, and the wise sheep, which are both moral and relig- 
ious. The^bumble-beephilosophizes, and the rooster studies 
aesthetics. All your birds, chickens, geese, and turkeys 
practice sesthetics, when they fall in love or pine away in 
unheeded affections, as you may hear in the beautiful 
cadences of the geese in my neighborhood. There are in 
Africa some monkeys whose noses are like those of some 
men, others who have the same teeth as made by our 
dentists, and others again walk far better erect than any 
drilled bear or dog. Some of them have beards — mark 
well, beards — not made out of other people's hair or hemp, 
but natural beards, long and of various colors; not like 
the beard of the he-goat, but like man's, grown by the 
sesthetical exertions of monkeys in love with hard-hearted 
monkey dames. Therefore, you see, the conclusion is 
irresistible; therefore all those monkeys and man must 
be the descendants of one and the same beast, of whose 
existence we have no knowledge; and that beast was the 
offspring of another and lower beast, and that again of 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 51 

another, and so on and on, down to the original dirt upon 
which the sun shone for the first time. There in that 
original dirt you may discover the history of all living 
creatures, all the morals, intelligence, and languages of 
man. But the spectacles must be correct and made in the 
Darwinian factory. Here is your Darwinism in brief. 

In a moral point of view the Darwinian hypothesis on 
the descent of man is the most pernicious that could 
be possibly advanced, not only because it robs man of his 
dignity and the consciousness of pre-eminence, which is 
the coffin to all virtue, but chiefly because it presents all 
nature as a battle-ground, a perpetual warfare of each 
against all in the combat for existence, and represents the 
victors as those worthy of existence, and the vanquished 
ripe for destruction. So might is right, the cardinal sin 
is to be the weekest party. If this is nature's law, and 
man is an improved beast, then war to the knife, perpetual 
war of each against all, is also human law, and peace in 
any shape is illegitimate and unnatural. Therefore in all 
cases of expulsion, assassination or slaughter, among indi- 
viduals or nations, the vanquished party was doomed in 
advance, by a law of nature; and the victors having en- 
forced the laws of nature are neither culpable nor respon- 
sible for their deeds. The British Parliament is not ready, 
I opine, to endorse this doctrine. The case is aggravated 
by the auxiliary hypothesis of sexual selection. If the 
most careful sexual selection makes the most perfect hu- 
man beings, then the potentates and nobility of the Old 
World have a twofold right to their claim of superiority 
and their title to govern others, and we poor and deluded 
democrats, who claim equality of rights for all, are in 
error; for the aristocrats of the Old World are the victors, 
or their descendants, by the most careful sexual selection, 
and we plebeians are sons of our mothers and fathers, who 
were ordinary mortals. So with ancient materialism and 
fatalism, we are led back to the ancient factions and clans 
of society with all the misery of that system; inalienable 
and inborn rights, equality, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness, are mere terms of a compact, and none a truth 
per se; the most improved felons are the lords of land and 
sea; and the other trash which has to be extinguished any 
how, is merely tolerated for the lords' special accommoda- 
tion. It appears to me that Darwinism is tolerated in Eu- 
rope, because it props the aristocracy. This point deserves 
much more consideration than I can give it in this lecture, 
as I do not mean to review the hypothesis from a moral 
standpoint; I intend to place fact against fact, and will 
begin at once. 



52 THE COSMIC GOD. 

In the first place the Darwinists ought to prove the unity 
of the human race, to render it plausible that the monkey- 
changed into an Ethiopian, the Ethiopian into a Mongolian, 
and he into a Caucasian. The unity or diversity of the 
human family is no settled question in science. In Eng- 
land, it is true, the Doctors Prichard and Latham main- 
tained the unity of the human family, hence the descent 
of all human varieties from one pair of human beings. 
But in America the contrary opinion has been advanced 
and well defended by Dr. Morton, Prof. Agassiz, the doc- 
tors W. Usher and J. C. Nott, Prof. S. H. Patterson and 
other prominent scientists. They maintain the diversity 
of the human family, consequently the descent of the va- 
rious races from different first parents. In Germany also 
much has been written and nothing established about this 
point; so that F. L. Lange steps conveniently across this 
stumbling block with the authoritative remark that it is 
immaterial. So it is in ethics and politics, but not in 
the theory of evolution; for here are plain facts in direct 
conflict with the Darwinian hypothesis. 

The English doctors, if we admit all their evidence and 
arguments, prove no more than the probability that outer 
influences may have changed the types of men to what 
they now are. The fact itself is not established. But there 
is the anatomical difference in the structure of the head 
and the texture of the hair, then the difference of color 
pointing to chemical differences, and above all the ethno- 
logical differences in the sum of inventions, language, and. 
civilization, so marked and decisive that the unity of the 
human race can be maintained by conclusive, scientific 
evidence only, which neither Mr. Darwin nor his followers 
advance. 

Reference to the Bible will not save the hypothesis. 
True, the author of G-enesis stood so much nearer to the 
cradle of humanity than we do, and ought to have known 
more than we of man's origin; still, we have no proof in 
hand of his infallibility on this point, unless we start out 
with ;the belief i n revelation. In this case, however, 
the Darwinian hypothesis falls of itself, as regards the 
descent of man. 

In my opinion, the Bible does not teach the unity of 
the human race, as I have already advanced in 1854 in 
my History, (Vol. 1. p. 42), there are not only the sons 
of Elohim and the daughters of Adam whose origin is 
doubtful ; but also the Nephilim, Rephaim, Enakim, E.orim y 
Samsumim, Aimim and several other tribes mentioned in 
the Bible, who were no descendants of either Adam or 
Koah. 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 53 

The hypothesis that the three races, Caucasian, Mongo- 
lian and Ethiopian, are descendants of the three sons of 
Noah, Shorn, Ham and Japheth, is utterly false, as the 
genealogical tables prove. In the case of Ham, the sup- 
posed ancestor of the Ethiopians, we know that the 
Egyptians, Phoenicians and Canaanites were his descen- 
dants, and they were all white, so white indeed, that 
K.ing Solomon married a daughter of Pharoah,King Ahab 
espoused the fair princess of Tyre, and the Hebrews had 
Canaanitish wives as late as the days of Ezra, although 
the daughters of Israel were always fair and beautiful, as 
the great Rabbi JohananEen Saccai testifies. There is 
no doubt in my mind that the author of G-enesis knows of 
the Caucasian race only. His Adam and Noah are the 
fathers of the Caucasians; his Paradise and Deluge must 
be located in Southern Asia. True, there are Ethiopian 
countenances on the Egyptian Pyramids, but they must 
not necessarily have been there in the time of Moses. The 
word Kushi, translated "Ethiopian," refers to Caucasian 
Arabs, as is evident from Numbers xii, 1, and II Chron- 
icles xiv, 7 to 1-4. "Very late in Jewish History (Jere- 
miah xiii, 23) the name Kushi is given to a man of anoth- 
er color. 

The unity of the human race is not established in science 
or the Bible. There is no evidence on record that a per- 
manent and lasting transition from race to race can be 
effected. The last fossil man found, is a Paleolithic skel- 
eton, discovered in the caverns of Metone, in Italy, and 
is about the same as a modern Caucasian, six feet high, no 
trace of an ape, and with a skull somewhat inferior to 
that of Mr. Darwin s. But there are now a number of 
inferior skulls no human frames; so at that time superior 
men may have lived simultaneously with that man of 
Mentone. 

It must be remarked here, that all the human fossils 
found hitherto, those of Cro-Magnon and Hohenfels in- 
cluded, together with all the discoveries of Abbe Burgeois 
and Tardy, and the learned expositions of Lartet, Mortil- 
let and Warsae, do not prove that those human beings did 
live in Europe prior to the early period of the Assyrian 
empire; or that the Glacial time together with the trog- 
lodite men and beasts was closed in Europe or America 
north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers, while there was a 
high civilization in Asia and Egypt; or that any but the 
Caucasian ever existed in Europe ; or that the human 
form and constructiou, head included, underwent any 
considerable change. We have now Pathegonians and 



54: THE COSMIC GOD. 

Esquimaux, Laplanders and the mountaineers of Cauca- 
sia, and in all localities between these extremes, we find 
men of the most diverse construction of skulls. The same 
precisely is the case with the implements. Stone, bronze 
and iron implements may have been in use simultaneously 
in various parts of the world, and I have no doubt they 
were ; as is the case now in many particulars. Professor 
Fraas himself proves by traditions from antiquity and the 
European Middle Ages, the existing knowledge from the 
troglodite period, the stone age, and the glacial time. So 
there is no fact in existence to prove either the transition 
from race to race, or any improvement or change of the 
human frame. 

If the races of the human family are permanent, and 
the proof thereof is as old as history, then the Darwinists 
are entitled to only one hypothesis in this relation, viz : 
one class of monkeys transformed themselves into one or 
more Caucrsian Adams and Eves, others into Mongolians, 
ann again others into Ethiopians. As we are best ac- 
quainted with the Caucasian race we will investigate 
chiefly, without neglecting the other races entirely, wheth- 
er or not sufficient points of similarity between man and 
monkey offer, to establish the fact of a common ancestry; 
or if sufficient points of dissimiliarity exist to deny the al- 
legation. I will say in advance, however, that to me,. 
man, of course woman incluied, is too dear a creature, to. 
be identified with or compared to any sublunar being. 
Man is the most beautiful and most perfect work of nature. 
Sun, moon, stars, rainbow and flowers compare not in 
beauty to the human countenance. There is nothing as 
lovely, tender and impressive as man's face, nothing more 
wonderful than his brilliant eye, more heavenlike than his- 
voice in song and speech, more sublime than a firm moral 
character, or more divine than a man contemplating God 
and eternity. All similes fail, all comparisons are false;, 
man stands alone and incomparable on this earth. But 
we deal in a scientific question, will and must handle it in: 
the scientific method. 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 55 



LECTURE VI. 



HOMO-BRUTALISM— REVIEWED ANATOMICALLY 



Ladies and Gentlemen: — Permit me to state that I 
admire Mr. Darwin as an eminent biologist, whose hy- 
potheses deserve a careful consideration. He displays 
more originality of thought in his particular branch than 
many prominent men, and his research is vast and won- 
derful. Men like Darwin are very rare, few and far apart. 
He deserves our admiration. His main hypothesis, how- 
ever, to account for the origin of species, together with the 
auxiliary hypotheses, appears to me not established in 
fact, and insufficient to account for the genesis of organ- 
isms. I furthermore think, that the German disciples and 
admirers morally pressed him to write his Descent of Man, 
which is the most unscientific book he did write. 

Homo-Brutalism in its modern garb, is much older than 
Darwin's book. It was first advanced by the zoologist 
Carl Vogt in a book which appeared in 1863. Mr. Haeckel, 
the German adviser of Mr. Huxley, was the man who gave 
the matter a strictly scientific and logical form, basing 
upon the Darwinian theory of evolution, or rather mech- 
anical transmutation. This pressed Mr. Darwin, to come 
forward with the last result of the hypothesis, attempting 
to establish the descendenoy of man from some unknown 
brutal ancestor, the progenitor of the anthropomorphous 
apes, especially the Gorilla, Ourang, Chimpanzee and Gib- 
bon, which bear, structural resemblances to man; because, 
as Mr. Darwin says, "As man agrees with them not only 
in all those characters which he possesses in common with 
the Catarhine group, but in other peculiar characters, 
such as the absence of a tail and callosities, and in gen- 
eral appearance, we may infer that some ancient member 
of the anthropomorphous sub-group gave birth to man" 
(Descent of Man, Vol. 1 p. 189.) 

Man's resemblance to the Catarhine monkeys is based 
chiefly upon his nostrils, jaws, and teeth, and this is about 
all he has in common with them, so that we might justly 
infer that man in smelling and grinding the food resem- 



56 TIIE COSMIC GOD. 

bles those monkeys. All other inferences are illegitimate. 
Man's resemblance to the anthropomorphous apes consists 
of the general appearance, which as a general thing 
amounts to very little, and the absence of tail and callos- 
ities. If, however, the absence of any member or phenom- 
enon is a good criterion of common genealogy, then man 
may just as well be considered of common descent with 
the lion or cat, for both of them wear mustaches, have 
neither tusks nor trunks, and there are white cats with 
blue eyes; only that our white beauties with blue eyes are 
not deaf, and cats of that kind usually are. But this 
wonderful change may have been brought about by sex- 
ual selection, in the course of a few millions of years, of 
course, since the Tertitary Age, as Mr. Haeckel wants it. 
Anyhow it is for the first time in science, that nonenity 
is considered an adequate criterion, to establish a fact. 

Some of the ancients were of the opinion, that those an- 
thropomorphous apes were accursed men, fallen men, men 
punished for their misdeeds, like King Nebuchadnezzar; 
and there is as much sense in this as in the other hypoth- 
esis. If those apes bear a stronger resemblance to man 
than to the lower monkeys, as Mr. Huxley maintains, I 
know not on what ground, and our sober experience 
teaches, that man may be brutalized, while brutes can 
not be humanized ; well, then, it is much more scientific 
to maintain that those apes are deterioated Ethiopians, 
than to advance that the Australian aborigene is an im- 
proved ape. It could be quite well supposed, that in pre- 
historic ages, at a time probably when Australia was con- 
nected with Asia, there was no communication between 
the tribes who lived far apart on account of the combat 
for existence ; individuals expelled from their tribes on ac- 
count of misdeeds, or losing their way in unbroken for- 
ests, went like Cain to the land of Nod, straggled far away, 
became low savages at this or that point, and finally ape- 
like beings at other points. Huxley admits that the 
Australians are of Egyptain origin ; hence he must 
admit deterioration in fact. If the proud race of Mitzraim 
could become savage and crippled Australians, why not 
also baboons? If on the one hand it is admitted that the 
monkey's hands could change gradually to human feet, 
and the hairy, rough and dark skin of the ape could be 
tanned and bleached to the soft and white skin of the 
Caucasian, why should not human feet, by climbing be 
changed into hands, and the naked body exposed to inim- 
ical elements, not become rough, dark, and hairy? 
Those who did not succeed in that adaption, we would 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 57 

say with Mr. Darwin, died out, and the changed individ- 
uals survived. All the other hypotheses of Mr. Darwin 
are applicable in this case much better than their opposite. 
The hypothesis of the ancients, I think is even prefer- 
able to Mr. Darwin's, because it rests upon experienced 
facts, and Mr. Darwin's does not. It has its proof even 
in embryology. The human embryo at a certain status 
is hairy, but this condition is overcome by the progress- 
ive development of the human being. If a state is over- 
come by the progressive development in the embryo, it 
might re-appear by the retrogression of the being to that 
lower condition. If the Darwinian would ask, why did 
man deteriorate to an anthropomorphous and not to an- 
other animal, I could reply for the ancients ; because like 
Yogt, Haeckel, Huxley, Darwin and the others, those 
straggling Ethiopians met among other animals also the 
Catarhine monkeys and mistook them for something akin 
to human beings, anyhow more sociable, less ferocious 
and more docile than other animals ; therefore they as- 
sociated with them, then aped them, and at last became 
like them, as analogous facts abundantly prove. If the 
Darwinian ask furthermore what is gained by the hypoth- 
esis of the ancients, I could answer for them a good deal; 
it saves the dignity of man, and might encourage the 
mission societies to send their pious and zealous mission- 
aries to the poor, neglected and lost apes, and quench the 
philanthropic thirst of good natured matrons. Is this 
nothing? Ask our enthusiastic friends, whether this is 
not a great deal. Then I would turn upon the Darwin- 
ian and ask him, what is gained by your hypothesis? 
Does it explain one trait of human character or one fea- 
ture of his organism? Is it of any earthly use to the 
physician, scientist, statesman, politician, law maker, ruler 
historian or philosopher? Evidently not, none can turn 
it to any practical purpose. It only degrades man, and 
gives him nothing in return. 

So, I believe, most all Darwinian hypotheses could be 
led ad absurdum, especially those concerning the Descent 
of Man, which present a momentary aberration of the 
human mind, a sporadic and epidemic disease of an over- 
loaded age, as was at its respective time alchemy, astrol- 
ogy, phrenology, and exploded exorcism. It is hardly 
necessary now, to argue against the Darwinian hypothesis 
on the descent of man, as little is left of it which Euro- 
pean thinkers have not refuted. From our standpoint, 
the diversity of the human family, comparing the Cau- 
casian man to the anthropomorphous ape, the dissem- 



58 THE COSMIC GOD. 

blance is so striking, that a common genealogy is impos- 
sible. Let us cast a glance upon anatomy first. 

None of the defenders of homo-brutalism will admit to 
be so ignorant of anatomy, that he could not distinguish 
prima vista, between any human bone or muscle and the 
corresponding bone or muscle of an ape. The same pre- 
cisely is the case with the texture of skin and hair, and 
their color. Evidently we have before us in each case 
another combination of cells different in structure, con- 
stituents and proportions. We deal here in chemical, con- 
sequently substantial differences, realized in different 
morphotic structures, which no sensible man can begin to 
account for, except by dissimilar differentiations of the 
vital force. There is no other cause known. Then the 
difference between man and ape in morphology is as mark- 
ed and decisive as that of a deer and an oak. 

But the anatomic dissemblances are also marked and 
decisive. Man has two hands and two feet, to begin with 
the locomotive organs, and the monkey has four hands, 
used as feet, to crawl, leap, or climb. Mr. Darwin tells 
us, during the millions of years, two of the monkey's 
hands, by application and inheritance, were changed to 
human feet. This might just as well have been accom- 
plished, as the dark rough and hairy skin of the ape could 
be transformed into the soft, smooth, and white skin of 
the Caucasian ; or as well as the dull eye of the baboon 
could be improved to the large, lustrous and expressive 
eye of man ; or the monkey skull could be proportioned 
and rounded to a human head. Yes, I would reply, one 
is as possible as the other. The question in this case, 
from the Darwinian standpoint, is, why should the man 
ape change two of his hands to mere feet? Sexual select- 
ion had nothing to do with it ; for no monkey dame could 
have possibly thought of a bi-handed or bi T footed lover, 
whose prehensile and defensive powers were so much 
decreased. With four hands one can sieze better than 
with two. In self-defense or labor, four hands will do 
better than two ; hence natural selection and the com- 
bat for existence had nothing to do with the wanton change. 
The ape with four hands and prehensive tail runs, leaps, 
climbs and defends himself better than a two handed and . 
unarmed man can. Hence there was no gain, there was- 
a great loss in the change to the animal ; why then should 
it have attempted such a deplorable change? Here Mr. 
Darwin's teleology fails, if he resorts not to the very un- 
likely hypothesis, that the man-ape felt the necessity of 
assuming an erect posture, which is the most marked 






HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 5& 

dissemblance of man and beast. Let us investigate this, 
point. 

The erect posture and bipedal walk of man is one of 
his characteristics falling in the eye of the most cursor y 
observer. The whole character of a man finds express- 
ion in his posture and gait. His feelings, emotions,, 
thoughts, intentions and resolutions are demonstrated in 
the positions of his body and the peculiarity of his steps; 
so that both are peculiarly human. This posture and gait 
are made possible by the anatomical structure of his bones 
and muscles. Without this pelvis, this spinal column, 
this clavicle, scapula, and sternum, with their peculiar 
muscles and nerves, upright posture is unnatural and 
bipedal walk impossible as a rule. The dog, bear, or ape 
may he drilled to assume it, but it is a perpetual strain 
and violence on them. Man only is constructed to look 
heavenward, onward, and forward. Mr. Yogt with all his 
partiality for the ape, nevertheless admits, that the struct- 
ure of man differs entirely from the ape, and man only is 
built to walk erect. This is also the last word of Haeckel 
and Huxley on this point, so that the latter admits, that 
links in the chain of creatures between man and ape are 
certainly missing. All rational zoologists admit that the 
structure of the rump, and not the locomotive organs de- 
cides the character of an organic being. In the rump, 
however, there exists not as much resemblance between 
man and ape as between the lion and oppossum, or the 
deer and the rat. If Mr. Darwin tells me, that now the 
structure of man makes the upright posture necessary and 
natural, but millions of years ago it was otherwise, I 
must ask why? how can you possibly know it? If it is, 
because the dog, bear, or ape can be taught to assume ex- 
ceptionally an erect posture, you can not change his 
bones and mnscles to give it permanency; how do you 
know it could at all be done at any time? and if you have 
no fact to show the bare possibility, are no prophet, and 
no son of a prophet, what right have you to advance a 
hypothesis in science, which has no foundation in fact 
and explains no phenomenon? 

Moreover, I would ask Mr. Darwin, why should the 
man-ape ever have attempted to walk erect, stretch, 
strain, disjoint, and dislocate bones and muscles, which 
must have been quite painful to that creature, merely to- 
assume a position so unnatural to him? He could not 
'possibly anticipate that by this exertion his whole frame 
will undergo a revolution to make of him a man and a 
Caucasian, nor could he care for it ; yet the fact is univer- 



60 THE COSMIC GOD. 

■sally admitted, that the human head, brain, countenance, 
the entire man is as he is, on account of his erect posture. 

In the combat of existence the man-ape could only in- 
jure himself by the tormenting experiment, which must 
have made him so much more helpless and defenseless, as 
it does to-day the dog, bear, or ape, in that unnatural 
position. Sexual selection had certainly nothing to do 
with it; for the ape-dame could not possibly be more par- 
tial to a helpless admirer who made a caricature of him- 
self than to one of her own kind and taste. Mr. Darwin 
has not advanced one holding point, and I can guess none, 
to prove the mere probability that man ever was a four- 
handed, creeping ape, or that the ape could chemically 
and morphotically change his entire frame for that of man; 
hence as far as anatomy is concerned, the hypothesis is 
groundless and childish. 

Still, if there be one within hearing distance to doubt 
this point, let him be reminded that man has a larynx in 
his throat by which he is enabled to utter articulate 
speech and human song ; yes, a larynx, with its five car- 
tilaginous pieces, which no animal has. Therefore man 
alone speaks articulate language and sings human songs 
which no animal can do. The animal having no ideas to 
express, has no use for a larynx, therefore it has none. 
Man is a man because he can speak articulate language 
and sing human song. He must have words to remember, 
abstract, reason, judge, establish principles, laws, science, 
philosophy, religion, ethics, aesthetics, all that is peculi- 
arly human. Without speech society with all its bless- 
ings, civilization with all its advantages, man in his 
present condition are impossible. Yet without these in- 
struments of speech, articulate words could not be uttered. 
Here Mr. Darwin's difficulty is simply insurmountable. 
Did the man-ape manufacture his larynx in order to be 
enabled to speak articulate sounds, of which he had no 
idea? Can so important an organ, upon which the entire 
fate of humanity depends, be produced by an animal? 
Where is the analogy, the parallel case? Has man, or 
has any animal, by any exertion ever succeeded in j^ro- 
ducing such an important instrument in his body? Ex- 
perience answers emphatically, no. Common sense can 
only ridicule the idea, that without any imaginable 
cause an animal should entertain the notion of producing 
-articulate speech. Our horses, dogs, cows, and other do- 
mestic animals, especially the Arab's camel, have asso- 
ciated with man thousands of years, still none have ac- 
quired a larnyx in his throat. He can not be man without 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 61 

articulate speech. No animal speaks and none has a 
larnyx, consequently man must have appeared on this 
earth with these organs of speech, the cause of speech in 
his mind and its instruments in his body. Therefore, if it 
were for no other reason, man could never have been an 
ape or any other animal. 

But here we step outside of anatomy upon the field of 
psychology, and I do not wish to confuse my hearers. 
Therefore I must leave the psychological argument for our 
next lecture, and stop here. You see the single points of 
dissemblance in anatomy are not supposed to constitute 
fully the dissemblance of man and ape. Take them alto- 
gether, and they do establish the point. We have before 
us in man an entirely anomalous structure of chemical 
and morphotic peculiarity. We have before us a bipedal, 
erect, and speaking being, with hands which Aristotle call- 
ed the instrument of instruments, an external appearance 
different from all animals, head, eye, and countenance 
peculiar to themselves only, which none can rationally 
explain except by another cause; another cause must be 
at work in the construction of man, another at the con- 
struction of animals. 

It is various differentation of vital force. Yet, if 
there were no structural dissemblances between man and 
ape, if man were completely ape-like in his body; his 
mind, his intelligence, his moral feelings and his works 
would fully distinguish him and entitle him to the 
consciousness that man is a man for all that, and nothing 
can be compared to him. We have no confreres among 
the animals. They can not think with us, hence they can 
not feel with us. But we discuss this point in our next 
lecture. 



62 THE COSMIC GOD. 



LECTURE VIII, 



HOMO-BRUTALISM — REVIEWED PSYCHOLOGICALLY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: — It appears to me, the more 
conclusively zoologists and somatologists prove the ident- 
ity of human and animal organisms, the more thorough- 
ly they prove the existence and substantiality of human 
mind as the efficient cause of the bodily organism. For 
there are capacities, abilities, feelings, and aspirations in 
man, to which the animal offers no more analogy than 
the squeak of a mouse to a symphony of Beethoven; and 
these distinguishing qualities of man are no less facts in 
science than those revealed by telescope or microscope, 
experience, or experiment, chemist or anatomist. If they 
depend on the organism, why are they not in all organ- 
isms as well as in man's? Or why not at least in those which 
are so similar to man, as Haeckel and Darwin maintain? 
And yet the psychical dissemblance of man and beast is 
so conspicuous and self- evident, that the most zealous 
apostles of homo-brutalism can not help confessing the 
utter iucomparableness of man and brute. If we would 
know only this one point, that those doctors dissect, de- 
scribe, delineate, dissolve, and classify animals, which no 
animal since the days of old grandfather Adam has 
thought of doing, it would suffice to establish the utter 
psychical dissemblance of man and beast; for it proves 
that man reasons and the brute does not. 

It appears to me, that there are two fundamental errors 
in the psychology of homo-brutalism. The first error is 
this. The advocates of that theory point out some isola- 
ted traits of human intelligence or feeling, disconnected 
with the general character of man, as prejudiced secta- 
rians expound Bible passages ; and then attempt to show 
that something similar is manifested by this or that ani- 
mal, especially of the lowest orders, such as the bee, ant, 
or spider. Having discovered some similiarities of this 






HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 63 

p 

kind in various animals, one trait here and another there, 
they jump to the conclusion of semblance between all men 
.and all beasts. 

In every alleged fact of this kind, the question recurs, 
is that attribute observed in the animal really there, or is 
it imposed on it by the interested observer. This quest- 
ion well answered in every particular case, that such hu- 
manlike attributes are indeed discerned among lower an- 
imals, then on the general principle of evolution, one must 
naturally suppose, those humanlike traits of intelligence 
or feeling will increase in number and quality as you rise 
in the progressive scale of organism, and approach man. 
But no, the bee, ant, spider, and other little creatures 
evince more intelligence than the dog, horse, elephant or 
ape. Where then is their psychical line of descendency up 
to man? There is none. Where is the law upon which 
to establish succession? There is none. Well then, what 
entitles anybody to a theory of psychical evolution? As 
the matter stands now, it is easier to establish the com- 
mon descent of man, with the bee, ant, or spider, from one 
brutal ancestry than to support successfully the similar 
hypothesis in regard to man and the anthropomorphous 
ape. 

Again isolated traits of humanlike intelligence or feeling 
in various animals, however apparent, form no criterion 
of semblance ; for the human mind which makes his char- 
acter is indivisible. It consists not of this or that special 
trait without all the others belonging thereto. When you 
say man, you deal in no fractions. When you say hu- 
man body, you mean all the parts thereof as a unit. 
When you say human mind, you mean one indivisible 
being in which all traits of that character are the constit- 
uents. You can mean only one luminary when you say 
sun j and all the isolated rays, of light you may contem- 
plate, have no resemblance to the sun. A thing, part man 
and part beast is an anomaly, like a thing which is part 
sun and part moon. We can neither imagine nor think 
it, nature offers no analogy to it. One humanlike trait 
here and another there scattered all over the animal king- 
dom, afford no better foundation to Darwin's hypothesis 
on the descent of man, than my hypothesis, if 1 should 
ever venture it, that the sun evolved from the stars, 
would afford, because each star sends us some rays of 
light which resemble rays from the sun. 
» It there was in existence any creature of structural and 
psychical resemblance with man and beast, or such a crea- 
ture was barely imaginable or thinkable, the Darwinian 



64 THE COSMIC GOD. 

• 

hypothesis might deserve some credence. But as the mat- 
ter really stands, patching together bones, muscles, organs, 
traits of character, intelligence, feelings, and gestures 
from a thousand different sources, and constituting there- 
of an anomaly, to which nature offers no analogy, and 
then base upon this patchwork of imagination the useless 
and aimless hypothesis of man's descent from an ape, in 
my opinion, is simply absurd and fantastic. 

The second error in the psychology of homo-brutalism 
is this. Its advocates look upon mind by the category of 
quantity instead of quality. They represent the case, as 
if there was a grain of mind in this animal, two grains in 
that, three or four in the next. Then as ,you rise in the 
scale of evolution the quantity of mind increases, till yoa 
reach man who has several pounds of it ; that is to say, 
those who have it. The savage has only one pound of 
mind, probably, Isaac Newton may have had ten, and we 
learned doctors of this decade, who know so much more 
than all our predecessors, must have each a twenty-five 
pounder of a mind. We must have feelings as thick as a 
beam, and thoughts of the specific gravity at least of gold, 
with a fine prospect ahead of infinite growth. Unfortu- 
nately neither Moses nor Aristotle has been duplicated in 
history, and two thousand years ago the children of Je- 
rusalem like our own this day, commenced going to school 
at the age of six ; so that inheritance did not do us much 
good. 

With the materialist, of course, quantity is the main cat- 
egory. In Darwinism, many brutal minds, if such a thing 
exists, make one human mind, which is a compound of 
bee mind, ant, and spider mind, fox mind, dog mind, op- 
possum mind, ape mind, etc., something like the broth in 
the kettle of Macbeth's witches. 

Mind must be contemplated under the category of qual- 
ity. Eed is not blue, and yellow is not purple, although 
they are colors all of them. A candle light is no gas- 
flame, an electric flash is no sunshine, although it is all 
light anyhow. So no animal mind bears the least sem- 
blance to any human mind, nor can all the millions of 
brutal spirits in the aggregate make one human mind, aff 
little indeed, as all oceans can be set in place of one moon. 
One thing can not be another, which is of other qualities, 
as other qualities are manifestations of another force 
which is the thing's substance. You can not speak of 
more or less mind; you can only speak of another mind. 
Therefore, if the Darwinian evolution of organisms could 
be established, evolution of mind is no less impossible; 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 65 

and it is infinitely strange, that reasoners should not 
detect prima vista these two fundamental errors. 

Look upon the matter from the empirical side, and you 
arrive at the same result precisely. The most superficial 
psychologist must be able to discover the following strong- 
ly marked distinctions of man and beast: 

All the instincts and manifestations of the animal are 
resultants from the principle of preservation, self-preser- 
vation, and preservation of the race. This principle is 
the animal's center, toward which all its functions and 
exertions tend, from its birth to its death. If let alone to 
its instincts, it does nothing else. It divides its time in 
periods of feeding, propagation, rest, and what belongs 
immediately to either. It manifests no other wants, de- 
sires, wishes, hopes, or fears. All observation of animal 
nature has not led outside of this periphery ; so that all 
biologists, Mr. Darwin included, must admit this univer- 
sal criterion of animal nature. In exact harmony with 
this principle, is also the animal's mental capacity. It 
knows no more, nor does it possess any impulse or capac- 
ity to know more, than the objects connected directly with 
its preservation. All observation of animal dexterity 
has not revealed one fact leading beyond this narrow limit. 
Therefore we may lay down as a fact, animal life is 
entirely subjective, without the power of ideality or 
objectivity. 

The lowest instincts of man, those which he continually 
seeks to modify, to check, and to control by his moral- 
intellectual force and its ideals, are the resultants of the 
self-same instinct of preservation, self-preservation and 
preservation of the race. The combat of this instinct and 
its resultants on the one side, and the ideals of its intellec- 
tual, moral, aesthetical, and religious nature, on the other 
side, is incessant and perpetual. True humanity begins 
with the victories of the latter and the submission of the 
former. In strict harmony therewith is also man's power 
of cognition, which extends to all objects, real or ideal, 
their qualities and the abstractions thereof. Hence human 
life is subjective objective, with the power of ideality and 
objectivity ; or in other words, human nature begins there, 
where animal nature has reached its highest and last funct- 
ion ; man begins where the animal ceases ; hence, again, 
human nature bears no resemblance whatever to animal 
nature. 

_ .This is not the case with the savage, says the Darwin- 
ist, nor with the brutalized persons in civilized society.— 
We say, to a certain extent it is. Few if any human 



66 THE COSMIC GOD. 

beings are so savage, that they have no moral and relig- 
ious ideas at all ; having any, however crude, the nature, 
combat, and results are the same in kind as with the man 
of higher and more ideals. 

Besides, if all our ancestors were savages at one time, 
they must have evidently had in themselves that moral, 
intellectual force and ideality, which enabled and com- 
pelled them to rise above their lower instincts, or else 
they could not possibly have done it. Having that force 
and ideality in them, they were no more like animals 
than the living germ is like the grain of sand, although 
identical in shape and quantity. Those persons in civili- 
sed society who live a merely brutal life, only prove 
man's freedom to go as far as suicide, which no animal 
can do; while the others prove, that human nature actu- 
ally begins, where animal nature ceases. If only one 
among a thousand would prove this, it wouldnot alter the 
case ; it would still prove that such is human nature. 

But, says the Darwinist, perhaps the animal also might 
be brought up to that higher state of life, as the dog has 
learned obedience and veneration, the horse feels an at- 
tachment to its rider, the cat flatters the kind mistress of 
the house, the camel listens to its driver's songs, the ele- 
phant fights for its human friend, and so on. All Dar- 
winists, we replyg are respectfully requested to admit, 
that mere probability without underlying facts furnishes 
no legitimate evidence in science. As far as human 
knowlodge reaches, it is impossible to develop a human 
mind in any animal. Whatever domestic animals may 
have learned of man, has been artificially imposed on 
them. It is not theirs. It is not the fruit of any germ 
within them. It is mechanical action, mechanically im- 
posed. Send them away from man, and in a short time 
they re-assume their natural instincts and characters ; 
but with man, his culture is his own. His particular 
character is the fruit of germs within him. His humanity 
grows out of his human nature. He is himself the mor- 
al, intellectual, sesthetieal, and religious being, who may 
impose some rules and feelings on the animals about him. 
All the wit of domestic animals proves as little the re- 
semblance of human and animal nature, as artificial hy- 
brids prove the Darwinian origin of species, by a suppos- 
ed law of mechanical transmutation. 

Besides, we have before us proof positive that animal 
nature can never become human nature. We know the 
existence and nature of a force by the effects it produces. 
There is no other criterion to recognize and characterize 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 67 

force. We examine the phenomena and judge the force 
which produces them. We have before us all which ani- 
mals have done, and all which men have done. The 
phenomena show two entirely different forces at work. 
In man's sphere we have before us the entire work of 
history, the gigantic structure of civilization, discussed 
above in the lectures on the objectivity of the human 
mind. Here is language with ail the mental treasures 
stored away in millions of minds and millions of volumes, 
all by the means and in the form of articulate sounds. 
Here is the fathomless ocean of science, all inaccessible 
and incomprehensible to the animal, because without lan- 
guage it can not form abstract ideas. The animal has no 
idea of numbers, as I know from repeated experiments. 
Most of the domestic animals have no steroscopic vision ; 
-any white, flat and oval body will do a hen for a nest 
■egg. Most of them can not distinguish colors, and will 
eat black dyed grass and grain just as well. Most of 
them have no idea of distance, so that the dog barking at 
the moon sees her very near and imagines she approach- 
es the dog's own standing point. Without the power of 
abstraction, the knowledge of numbers, distance, exten- 
sions, aud colors, to stop here, the animal is incapable of 
making, classifying and generalizing experiences, or to 
have any correct knowledge of the things of its cognition. 
It can have neither a past nor a future, it lives in the 
present continually. It can remember certain persons 
and things as totalities, but not the qualities and criteria 
thereof. Therefore it forgets rapidly the past and the 
objects seen or heard, possesses none by its criteria, 
can reproduce none outside of itself, can not combine, 
reproduce or invent in any form. Mr. Darwin never in- 
forms us of the pictures drawn or painted by elephants, 
statues carved out by monkeys, useful implements or or- 
naments made by horses or dogs, musical instruments or 
new compositions made by birds, or the mathematical 
problems solved by bees, spiders, and ants. The animal 
can not get outside of itself, because there is nothing in it 
to be objectivated ; man continually objectivates his mind 
because he has one. 

Mr. Darwin's animal aesthetics is manifested in each 
animal's bodily ornaments ; man's aesthetics is objecti- 
vated mind in works of art and external ornament. Mr. 
Darwin's animal morals consist of some unconscious and 
particular habits of some domestic animals ; man's morals 
begin with the universal principle of respect for the. good 
and the true outside of himself, and the consciousness of 



68 THE COSMIC GOD. 

freedom to govern his instincts. Mr. Darwin's animal re- 
religion consists of the dog's brief respect for his master 
of to-day ; and man's religion begins with the cognition 
of the invisible God, the ideal of all his ideals. Mr. Dar- 
win's animal intelligence consists of a continued sameness 
of certain mechanical performances; and man's intelligence 
is manifested in perpetnal variations, combinations and 
inventions. How in the world, men and scholars can 
compare those entirely different qualities and manifesta- 
tions, and discover in them any resemblance, is as incom- 
prehensible an absurdity to me, as one, in presence of all 
the creations of the human mind, and in absence of any 
creations of the animal mind, can still maintain, both are 
of the same kind. If it' is true that a force must manifest 
itself, and we know its existence and nature by its re- 
sultants ; then it must be equally true, that the moral-in- 
tellectual force, mind-force, human soul, or whatever it 
may be called, is in man only, because it manifests itself 
in human creations of intelligence, morals, aesthetics and 
religion, it is objectivated ; and it is not in the animal,, 
because it is not manifested in any creations. This force 
not being in the animal, hence animal- nature can never 
be changed into human nature, as nothing can come out 
of nothing. 

The lowest Australian savage stands as high above and 
as distinct from the anthropomorphous ape, as Isaac 
Newton stood above the lowest savage ; for the offspring 
of that very savage can be educated and humanized, and 
the ape remains an ape, whatever training you give him; 
simply because there is human mind in man, and another 
principle of life in the animal. The Australian abori- 
gine is a deteriorated Ethiopian, thrown back from hu- 
man habitation, probably by the combat for existence and 
other causes, brutalized by exclusion and isolation ;as was 
the case with our Northern Indians cut off from their 
Southern cognates. Therefore all human beings, if taken 
care of in their infancy, can be educated and humanized,, 

I do not mean to say, that I have to advance no more 
against Mr. Darwin's homo-brutalism ; lor the whole ap- 
plication of natural and sexual selections, combat for ex- 
istence, variability and inheritance, to the development 
and history of man, is radically erroneous, because second- 
ary causes are made primary ones; and I might discuss 
every point separately. I mean to say, no more is nec- 
cessary in order to upset the hypothesis. It is not based 
upon any known fact and explains none. It is useless in 
all departments of human knowledge and practice. It i& 



HOMO-BRUTALISM REVIEWED. 69 

nugatory to morals, robs man of the consciousness of his 
dignity and pre-eminence, and brutalizes him. There ex- 
ists no anatomical resemblance between man and any 
known animal, as a complete and full organism. There 
exists no resemblance whatever between human mind, 
his intelligence, ethics, aesthetics and religion, and the 
principle of life discoverable in the animal, no resem- 
blance in man's creations and animal doings. I expect 
to have proved all this, and think no more is necessary 
for intelligent people, to be convinced of the utter absurd- 
ity of homo-brutalism. Therefore I say no more on this 
topic. 

It would be in proper place now, to discuss the origin 
of species ; but we are not prepared to do it, before we 
iiave taken a general survey of ontology and biology, 
in order to ascertain and establish a principle upon which 
to base. We must know whether there is mind outside 
of man, or there is none, in order to decide whether mech- 
anical or intellectual causes were active at the origin of 
species. It suffices to our present purpose to know, that 
the theories and hypotheses of homo-brutalism do not and 
can not refute our starting point in this inquiry, viz.: 
there is mind, and this will lead us on to the very ob- 
jective point we seek to reach, the Cosmic God. 



70 THE COSMIC GOD. 



LECTURE IX. 



ELEMENTARY ONTOLOGY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: — Nothing is more familiar and 
appears more wonderful to us than the nocturnal sky with 
its millions of silent and scintillating worlds floating mys- 
teriously in the fathomless deep of the universe. Yet 
there is something more wonderful even than the stars, 
and that is the immense space in which they are mere 
sparks, like stations far apart, to serve as resting points 
to the mind, gazing on, and coursing through the vast 
and boundless expansion. It is extremely difficult to form 
a correct idea of space, if we begin to think that the mean 
distance of the Centauri from the earth is calculated at 
twenty billions of miles ; that the distance of the Sirius is 
six time that of the Centauri, so that it takes its rays of 
light fifteen and one half years to reach our earth ; and 
rising thus from constellation to constellation, according 
to magnitude, up to the milky-way, and the nebulae, and 
imagine that the rays of some stars take thousands of years 
to reach our earth, space appears too immense for the 
human mind ; and yet we can hardly imagine how small a 
fraction of the universe that portion is which we, with our 
best telescopes, can discover from our standpoint on this 
earth. The most wonderful of all, however, by far more 
marvelous than stars and space, is man's mind with its 
self-consciousness, which knows both stars and space, and 
contemplates both t to ascertain their mysteries not re- 
vealed to the eye. Man is nature's most profound mys- 
tery. 

Before we can go on with our lectures, we must form 
some fundamental idea of the nature of this universe, in 
which and of which all things are. We must attempt to 
investigate and explain the nature, essential properties, 
and relations of all things as man comprehends them ; and 
this science is called Ontology, from onta, "all things,'* 
and logos, "a discourse or exposition." 



ELEMENTARY ONTOLOGY. 71 

The first question in ontology is necessarily elementary. 
What is the primary element of which all these things 
are made? This, however, is the diverging point of the 
two systems of philosophy, known as materialism and 
spiritualism. In materialism, matter is the substance, and 
the forces inherent in matter create, preserve and govern 
all which is in this universe, mechanically and automati- 
cally. In spiritualism, spirit or mind is the substance, 
and the forces which create, preserve and govern all things 
in this universe, are manifestations of the will of that 
spirit, mind or intelligence. 

We must first consider the claims of materialism as a 
philosophy, i. e., a system of thoughts which expounds 
the universe with all its beings and their relations, as far 
as human reason and experience reach. 

All materialists agree that there is only one substance 
in this universe, which is matter ; still materialistic ontol 
ogy is of two kinds, atomistic and dynamistic. Dynam- 
istic ontology maintains, the .primary element of the uni- 
verse in force, and crossing forces produce and shape mat- 
ter. Atomistic ontology maintains the primary element 
of the universe is matter, and this is the theory which we 
propose to investigate in this lecture. 

Atomistic materialism starts out with the axiom, only 
that which the senses can perceive, capable of being sen- 
sually experienced, has existence in reality. All objects 
must appear bodily, moveable in space, and timely, chang- 
ing with and in time. Matter filling space is the eternal 
and imperishable substratum of all being, motion any 
change. It consists primarily of its smallest parts, called 
atoms. The variety of the sensual objects depend on the 
different composition and configuration of the atoms by 
forces which exist in them and inseparable from them. 
All motion and generation in nature must be derived from 
the quantitive proportion of the atoms and their inherent 
forces of pressure and concussion. These two forces pro- 
duce the entire mechanism of nature, and appear by the 
various configurations of the atoms as cohesion or organ- 
ic life, as gravitation or Mr. Huxley's philosophizing 
brain, as the underlying and motor power of all that is, 
was, or will be, in molecule, planet, solar system or sys- 
tems; the lion's roaring and preying, Caesar crossing the 
Eubicon, the great American rebellion, and the Germans 
besieging Paris, prairie fires, burning forests, and the con- 
flagration of Chicago, all facts, phenomena, thoughts, feel- 
ings, instincts, passions, deeds, and omissions, all which 
history and nature may show in all eternity, is the pro- 



72 THE COSMIC GOD. 

duct of the atoms and 'their inherent forces of pressure 
and concussion. It is all one piece of mechanism, dead, 
and dumb, all inevitable necessity and blind casualty 
This I believe, is a fair and impartial statement of atom- 
istic materialism as ontology, and we will for the sake of 
brevity call it atomism. 

This atomistic ontology of an automatic universe, is usu- 
ally illustrated by the ficticious spirit which La Place ad- 
vanced. He supposes an omniscient spirit, one who 
knows all atoms and their inherent forces, together with 
all possible combinations whieh they are capable of enter, 
ingin a sun or a crystal, a man's brain, or an infusorium- 
That spirit would also know all phenomena of nature, 
physical, moral and mental, which must occur in all eter- 
nity. As we calculate an eclipse or a transition in advance, 
that spirit could say, when, where, and why one will com- 
mit suicide, fall in love, establish an empire, or feel des- 
pondent on account of boots being too narrow, or a din- 
ner spoiled; because all and every thing comes from the 
atom with its inherent forces of pressure and concussion. 

According to atomism, you will readily understand 
aesthetics and ethics, freedom and virtue, individuality 
and character, merits and demerits, religion and morals, 
justice and duty, self-government and self-improvement, 
in brief, all that makes man and society, fails dead to the 
ground as an unwarranted superstition, unworthy of any 
enlightened naturalist ; as all and every thing depends 
upon the casual or necessary configuration of atoms and 
the resultants of diagonal and inherent forces, beyond the 
control of God or man, intelligence or fate, will or passion, 
beyond the control of nature itself. But this is no argu- 
ment against atomism as a fact, for the materialist can 
say, the universe will not conform to your notions of util- 
ity or your desires of happiness. It is as it is, and where 
your notions and desires run contrary to the fact, you 
labor under error and self-delusion, which you had better 
correct as fast as you can. The spiritualist might reply 
to this, man and society being within the realm of nature, 
and according to materialism in perpetual revolt against 
her laws, then either man is supernatural, preternatual or 
any way above the laws of nature in certain respects ; or 
these laws of human nature, suchas^elf-consciousness, free- 
dom, duty, justice, virtue, are also natural laws ; in either 
case atomism contains a fundamental error, as in the first 
case the atom and its forces govern not all things, and 
materialism is no philosophy, leaving phenomena unex- 
plained and unknowable j and in the second case the laws 



ELEMENTARY ONTOLOGY. 73 

of nature are not that which atomism presents them to 
be, as the only focus in which they reveal themselves, in 
man's understanding, they produce freedom and rational 
intention and design, hence they are neither absolute ne- 
cessity nor casualty. But we will not press this argument 
here, simply on account of its psychological nature it ex- 
tends outside the scientific material under consideration. 

The fundamental error of all materialism is in the self- 
delusion of attaching more certainty to matter outside of 
man than to his intelligence within himself. The things 
and the phenomena do not enter the mind in reality; we 
merely perceive them, we possess their images in our 
knowledge. The entire material world exists for us hu- 
man beings as images of our imagination and ideas of our 
intelligence. Schopenhauer calls the consciousness of this 
truth the philosophical considerateness. Kant has made 
it the corner-stone of all philosophy, and no thinking man 
can deny it. All our knowledge is subjective, and in the 
first instance anthropomorphic. We carry over our 
thoughts, feelings and form into the objects of our observa- 
tions. I see the muscles in a neighbor's face contract in a 
manner which I think to exhibit pain, or the contracting 
muscles move the lips to a smile, which I think exhibits 
pleasure. In both cases I only think so, because I have 
experienced pleasure and pain and a similar contraction of 
the muscles. I see tears issuing from a person's eye, and 
judge by the surrounding circumstances that these are the 
tears of joy or sorrow, because under similar circumstan- 
ces I have also w^ept. The same is the case with all mo- 
tions, gestures, and performances of man ; we understand 
them only by interpretation of our own experience and 
feeling which we carry over to other men, because we think 
they are like us. 

We do the same things precisely with the animals, and 
none has done it more extensively than Mr. Darwin. ' Ex- 
cept by interpretation of our own nature we know noth- 
ing of animal or vegetable psyche. We carry over our 
own thoughts, feelings and affects into the animal or even 
the vegetable, and adorn it with part of our own qualities 
and attributes and make it human in part, and then per- 
suade ourselves to believe they are in the animal or vege- 
table, with how much truth, we shall discourse in another 
lecture. 

Kext we carry over our subjective thoughts, feelings, and 
.affects into inanimate nature, and all become human or- 
ganism, consisting of atoms, which are no more and no less 
than miniature men of materialistic imagination. Then. 



74 THE COSMIC QOD. 

we find in inorganic nature, life and functions, such as mo- 
tion, sound, light and color. But there is no motion ex- 
cept in the intelligence which notes the change of place; 
in the universe as a whole everything is stationary. There 
is no sound in nature except for the ear of organic beingsi 
it is all mere undulation of the air. There is no heat ex- 
cept for living creatures, no light and no color except 
for eyes similar to ours. All these impressions exist 
in our self-consciousness, and what is left of this universe 
of mechanical material construction is a mere automaton. 
The mechanism is here as completely as atomistic pressure 
and concussion can make it ; but it is all dead, cold, dark, 
without thought and without feeling, none, not even the 
fictitious spirit of La Place can understand anything about 
it, because it has no attributes, no qualities, no manifesta- 
tions, it is one solid piece of infinite machinery. 

Therefore, the universe, in order to be knowable in 
the whole, or its parts, must first be enlivened, so to 
say, by intelligence after it has become an ideal reality 
in man's self-consciousness. Then intelligence and self- 
consciousness is the main power upon which we rely for 
any and every knowledge of the outer world. This must 
be most certain or we know nothing. But the atomist 
turns the whole upside-doTsn, and starts out with tho 
supposed axiom that the existence of the atoms and their 
inherent forces is more certain than my knowledge of 
myself. Here is the fundamental and radical error of all 
materialism as a philosophy. Philosophy must expound 
intelligence and self- consciousness and the relation of all 
objects thereto. All ontology begins with human nature. 
Therefore we opened this course of lectures with investi- 
gations into the human mind. For as long as we were 
not sure of mind, we could not possibly be sure of any- 
thing, since the things exist for us only as far as we are 
cognizant of them. But the atomist perverts the order 
of things. He is in the same condition with the man 
who maintains he has no eyes, nevertheless he is positive 
of the exactness and truthfulness of the objects of hi& 
vision. 

Atomism maintains to possess positive knowledge of 
the nature of matter and its inherent forces, and adds 
self-satisfied, this is the only positive knowledge we do 
possess ; although it has no means whatever to account 
for life, thought, sensation, feeling, consciousness, and 
kindred phenomena. Let us see how much truth is in 
the allegation. It is extremely easy and simple to main- 
tain, that matter consists of the atoms, for it is a mero 



ELEMENTARY ONTOLOGY. 75 

dissolution of a oody into its smallest imaginable or 
thinkable parts, entirely empiric and arbitrary. But 
what is the nature of those atoms ? The materialist can 
not tell any more or better the qualities of the atom than 
of a large body composed of them, or, vice versa ; hence 
the theory explains nothing. An atom can not be imag- 
ined ; for however small a particle of matter you imagine, 
it is always divisible, hence no atom which must be indi- 
visible. If I dissolve the meteor, by destroying its in- 
herent cohesion, I have primary matter. I dissolve this 
matter into its elements, by setting force against force, 
and the particles have become very small. I divide them 
ideally, and I have molecules. I reduce the molecule 
ideally to a point without dimensions, and I have no lon- 
ger a material atom; I have a thought-thing, without 
material reality, something like the mathematical point, 
a purely metaphysical creature which is something and 
nothing at the same time. The material world, accord- 
ing to the atomists, consists of such atoms which are 
something and nothing. But a thing cannot be some- 
thing and nothing at the same time. There is a con- 
tradiction in the terms. The atom can not be a material 
something, or else it must have dimensions, and be no 
longer an atom. Hence the atom is nothing. Many 
times nothing is always nothing ; hence all matter con- 
sists of nothing. Here is the foundation of all atomis- 
tic philosophy. You see the atom is as rude a metaphys- 
ical creature, except as a scaffolding for chemistry and 
physics, as the hob -goblin of the African savage. In one 
case it is a ghost, and in the other a thing without di- 
mensions, still material existence is claimed for both. 
Atomism first destroys the reality of matter and then 
maintains the existence of matter only is known with 
certainty. This is no philosophy, it is self-delusion. 

But if we admit, the atomist's knowledge of matter is 
certain, we know next to nothing of the universe, by his 
method, and atomism is still no philosophy. This uni- 
verse, or as much as we know of it, contains a small frac- 
tion of ponderable matter in proportion to its space. If 
you calculate the space which the solar system occupies 
and the bulk of matter in its various bodies according to 
their different degrees of density, you will find that mat- 
ter composed of atoms is a small fraction in space. The 
constancy and universality of natural laws entitle to the 
conclusion that the same proportion of matter to space 
is universal. Matter occupies a small fraction in the im- 
mensity of space. Therefore, if we admit all and every- 



76 THE COSMIC GOD. 

thing ever advanced by the atomists, we still know next 
to nothing of the universe. The atoms and their inherent 
forces can be thought in connection with ponderable mat- 
ter only. This has existence in the worlds and their at- 
mosphere only, and outside thereof is the universe in 
which those bodies float like points, without offering the 
least analogy of the two forms of existence; so that one 
of the ancient philosophers 'maintained, space is God. 
All atomistic theories taken as granted, they do not be- 
gin to expound the universe ; hence atomism is no phi- 
losophy ; and it is of no possible good to science except 
~as a scaffolding to chemistry and physics, the latter even 
can do very well without it. 

We can not be satisfied with atomism in our element- 
ary ontology ; because : 

1. It maintains that we know with more certainty the 
existence and qualities of matter than the existence and 
revelations of our own mind in our self-consciousness. 

2. It can not account for the existence of life, thought, 
sensation, feeling, self-consciousness, human nature, so- 
ciety, and history. 

3. The fundamental idea of the atom is an absurdity, 
an incomprehensible and transcendental creature of em- 
piricism, which negates the existence of matter. 

4. The matter which might be said to consist of atoms 
is. a small fraction of the space which offers no analogy 
to ponderable matter, so that one can not possibly ex- 
plain the other. 

Unable to explain the nature of things, their relations 
and connections, atomism is no philosophy, and we seek 
an ontology upon which to erect a philosophical system. 

The question may justly be asked, if atomism is so 
absurd, how did it come to be defended by so many scien- 
tists ? We will answer this question in our next lecture. 
Here we will only say that in Germany and France mo- 
nism has succeeded atomism with many very respectable 
specialists. It is given up as an untenable position. Per- 
mit me also to add, that most scientists are rather poor 
philosophers. They hold to their school theories, in the 
main, as long as they possibly can. I have seen very 
fine scientists who were one-sided and thoughtless secta- 
rians in religion ; and insignificant specialists and ama- 
teurs who were positive atheists, simply because neither 
of them ever went into an analysis of his thoughts. They 
can not philosophize. 



HISTORY OF MATERIALISM. 77 



LECTURE X. 



HISTOEY OF MATEEIALISM. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — Before entering upon the main 
subject of this lecture, permit me to state that nothing 
can appear actualized in the monuments of mind, which 
is not in the mind. The energy must be there first be- 
fore it can be realized. Whatever is not in man he can 
not do. Therefore we look upon all monuments of ac- 
tualized mind in the works and history of man as equal- 
ly necessary in the great drama of history. The super- 
stitions of the savage, in the process of man's develop- 
ments, are as necessary as the religion, philosophy, and 
science of cultural nations. If it were not necessary, it 
would not be. 

I make this statement in, order not to be misunderstood 
in "regard to either science or religion. Both of them 
are, for the consideration of philosophy, mental elements. 
Their connection appears to me in history thus : 

The human mind, when it first began to think con- 
sciously, capable of abstraction and reflection, was ideal- 
istic. The mind set itself outside of itself in ideals of 
religion and art. Both are the offspring of spontaneous 
inspiration, and creative of axiomatic truth, with the de- 
sire to realize them in man and society, or in works of 
art. Both are boundless. They break through the lim- 
its of reality, or even probability, into the infinite, and 
are liable to roam upon the broad ocean of phantasy, far 
beyond the secure haven of sober truth. 

Error always produces practical results painful to man 
and society, irritates the reasoning faculty, and chal- 
lenges resistance. This gives rise to philosophy, which 
stops the erratic reveries ; and calls the products of the 
'mind before the judgment seat of reason, to establish an 
equilibrium between the work of spontaneity and the 
force of reality, to arrive at approximate truth. 



"78 THE COSMIC GOD. 

Again, philosophy is after all speculative, consequent- 
ly liable to the influence of phantasy. Like religion and 
art, it is engaged in the solution of problems pointing to 
the infinite, so that it often leaves the terra firma of real-' 
ity. Nevertheless it can not desert this ground entirely, 
therefore expounds, shapes, and forms it, to harmonize 
with the main idea or theory of the peculiar system. 
This leads to grave errors as well as to great discoveries 
in natural science. Here come in again the errors, the 
painful results, the irritation and challenge of reason; 
which rouses the mind to another species of activity, the 
investigation of special provinces of reality, research, 
and experiment, to establish facts and laws of the things 
as they are in essence and function. So science corrects 
philosophy, as philosophy corrects religion and art. 

On the other hand, however, it must be admitted that 
religion and art produce the material for philosophy, aud 
philosophy produces the ideas for science, which retnrns 
its results to philosophy. Again, philosophy in regard 
to religion and art must be skeptical and critical, must 
doubt, analyze, reject and adopt, in order to construct ; 
and science must be skeptical and critical in relation to 
philosophy in the same manner and for the same reason. 
Still it is only from the harmony of these three elements 
of our knowledge, and these three methods of our cog- 
nition, that truth rises in her sublime beauty and majes- 
tic grandeur. 

Besides the numerous benefits of practical life and the 
progress of intelligence resulting from natural science, it 
acts also as the centripetal force on philosophy, religion, 
and art, which are centrifugal in their very nature. It 
calls them back to the facts of material reality. There- 
fore no rational man will expect of the scientist that, in 
his science, he be anything but a materialist. Nature 
must explain itself. He has no use for miracles or any 
divine interposition, as long as he seeks the facts and 
laws of matter. Nor can it be expected of the scientist 
to adopt the method of cognition, peculiar to religion, 
art, or philosophy. He must have his own, because his 
field of labor is peculiar to itself. All that is expected of 
him is not to arrogate to himself all knowledge of all 
truth, to the exclusion and negation of all other prov- 
inces of mental activity. 

Therefore, whatever I might say about materialism as 
a philosophy, can not and does not refer to the method 
of the natural sciences, which I think is perfectly correct, 
or personally to any scientist, who must do his work in 



HISTORY OF MATERIALISM. 79 

his own way in order to do it well. I have nothing to 
say against specialists, as most all scientists proper are. 
I merely review the philosophical attempts of specula- 
tive scientists — some of- them do not even deserve this 
title — to deify matter and establish new creeds of scien- 
tific dogmas, as men like Vogt, Moleschot, Buechner, 
Haeckel, Huxley, and Tyndal do. I investigate to dis- 
cover the worth of their pretensions. Now let us go to 
history. 

When in ancient Greece mythology had run through 
its natural cycle, the classical poets had poured forth 
their best of the beautiful and the true, and the sculptors 
had carved out the ideas of cold marble, error challenged 
reason, which took hold upon the accumulated material, 
and opened the history of formal philosophy, with 
Thales, Hippo, Aneximenes, Anaximander, and Heraclit. 
The starting point was one upon which the theology of 
that day had heaped myth, and explained nothing. It 
was the problem of the stability of being and the mobil- 
ity of beings. Nothing remains as it is and what it is, 
yet all remains the same forever. The mind attempted 
to penetrate the realms of mutations in search of the im- 
mutable cause. 

It must not be expected of those thinkers that they 
solved the problem, although they prepared it well for 
future reasoners. They were not acquainted with the 
principles of mind and intelligence. They had no psy- 
chology, no formal logic, and no idea of universal intelli- 
gence; hence the question reduced itself to the nature of 
matter, in which the solution of the problem was sought. 
Without knowledge of natural laws, or even forces, their 
speculations on matter were crude, and in many in- 
stances childish. Without science they could hardly be 
otherwise. The results of a long cycle of speculation, 
with the exception of two abstract ideas, causation and 
being, were very meagre, and like the starting point and 
paganism the world over, materialistic, first in the form 
monism, which considers all the universe one consecutive 
mass of matter with the cause of motion within itself, 
and motion as the cause of all other phenomena in na- 
ture. Matter continually brings forth individual beings, 
and absorbs them again as the waves rise from the ocean 
to fall back again. Then followed the rude analysis of 
matter into three and finally four elements with the 
"problem, which of the elements predominates in univer- 
sal causation? At last philosophical analysis went be- 
yond the elements, imagined matter to consist originally 



80 THE COSMIC GOD. 

of the smallest thinkable parts, called atoms, in which 
the cause of all motion and being is permanent forever. 

Strabo thinks the Phaenician Moshus was the author of 
the atomistic hypothesis. Laertius and Cicero were of 
the opinion that Leukipp invented it, Anyhow it was 
introduced in Grecian philosophy by Democritus, the 
well-known laughing philosopher, sometime between 470 
and 460 B. C, with whom everything, also the gods, was 
an aggregate of atoms. On the other hand, Pythagoras 
(540 to 510 B. C.) and the Italian school, had introduced 
the mysticism of numbers, and expounded the universe 
by the mysteries of mathematics. 

Extensive travels in the East, especially in Egypt, 
Phsenicia, and Syria, then the centers of culture, and the 
close intercourse with the then dominant Persians, grad- 
ually brought other ideas into Greece, so that in the 
fourth century B. C, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and their 
disciples, made an end to the more ancient materialism,, 
and built up those systems of philosophy, including the 
natural sciences, which have exercised so vast an influ- 
ence upon the progress of man, and still do in very 
many instances, so that besides the Bible, Plato and Aris- 
totle were the main factors of civilization. Still mate- 
rialism had two more prominent disciples, Epicurus and 
Lucretius, who took up and expounded the atomic hy- 
pothesis : but they were read and studied only after the 
cycle of classical philosophy had been closed, and moral 
corruption had taken a firm hold of the Eoman, whom 
the Stoics with their stern ethics could not satisfy. 

It must be borne in mind that materialism was not the 
fruit of science : it was metaphysical, set into the world 
in ages of myths, crude speculation, and considerable ig- 
norance ; it was the first attempt at philosophy. 

The conquests and subsequent corruption of Eome, the 
advent of Christianity, and the construction of a huge 
despotism, made an end to philosophy, until the Arabs r 
a century after Mohammed, took up again the Grecian 
literature, and with it also the classical philosophy. 
Arabs and Jews, with the exception of a few Christian 
scholasts, were the expounders of philosophy in the 
Middle Ages down to the revival of letters m England 
Also among those Arabs and Jews, a materialistic school 
sprang up under the name of Kelam, which continued 
the atomistic theories, with the only addition of a Su- 
preme Being, who was to them the Creator and governor 
of the atoms ; and one of those philosophers was the cel- 
ebrated Ibn Gabriol. Saadia already, and after him a 



HISTORY OF MATERIALISM. 81 

number of Jewish reasoners down to Moses Maimonides, 
discussed atomistic theory, and advanced nearly all and 
the same arguments against it which are in vogue now ; 
but our common historiographers are not aware of these 
facts. 

In Christendom, however, there is no trace of atomism 
before Gassendi. This Pierre Gassendi, the learned 
Frenchman (1592 to 1655) philosopher and mathema- 
tician, the friend of Keppler and Galileo, cotemporary 
and opponent of Descartes, reproduced and enlarged the 
system of Epicurus and Lucretius. At the same time 
Thomas Hobbes (1588 to 1679) advanced his materialistic 
system in England, and found numerous admirers and 
disciples. These two men started materialism in Chris- 
tendom, and gave the impulse to the revival of natural 
science. 

Polemical discussions over materialism, in France, Ger- 
many, England and Holland, were almost continual in the 
last part of the 17th and the 18th centuries. In France 
which had no philosopher between Diderot and Comte > 
and hardly any religion, materialism produced atheism, 
which reached its highest point in the age of reason. In 
Germany, the philosophers, and especially Immanuel 
Kant overcame atheistic materialism, but succumbed also 
after Kant to Spinoza's pantheism, which is not hostile 
to science. In England which had no philosophers after 
Locke and Hume, the religious feeling overcame mater- 
ialism and turned it into the peculiar English deism 
Atomism was retained among scientists, more as a scaf- 
folding of chemistry than a principle. Between the days 
of Robert Boyle (1626 to 1692), the founder of the royal 
society, and John Dalton (1766 to 1844) both chiefly 
chemists, the conceptions concerning atoms were fre- 
quently modified, especially through the influence of 
Isaac Newton's discoveries, as was the case also after 
Dalton had established his theory of matter. None ever 
thought of constructing a philosophical system on the 
atomistic basis. Scientists were mostly Spinozists, panthe- 
sists or deists of some kind. This gave England and 
France the advantage, that their scientists speculated 
less and worked more successfully for the advancement 
of industry and commerce, while Germany was still en- 
gulfed in transcendental speculation. The modern 
English philosophers of nature have been dragged from 
the practical field by German influence, as we shall see 
instantly, and cling to atomism merely from scholastic 
prejudice. The main naturalists who established atomism 
6 



82 THE COSMIC GOD. 

in science were Englishmen of great influence. It is now 
the system of the schools, over which Mr. Tyndal could 
not come without considerable trouble. 

What Cromwell and his Ironsides have done for Eng- 
land and the revolution for France, philosophy and 
science are doing slowly for Germany and Austria. Up 
to the year 1830 Germany poetized, philosophized, was 
dogishly loyal and transcendentally patriotic. The 
wretched results of 1830 sent the patriots to prisons or 
into exile; priests, professors, and artists were impressed 
into the service of absolutism, in State and church. 
Metternich's policy governed Austria, Germany, Italy, 
and partly also France. Jesuits and priests were his 
tools and he was their patron. 

The period of philosophy and poetry closed and there 
was a painful vacuum in the German mind, to observe, 
that there was in the neighboring countries of Western 
Europe not only more liberty and more popular power, 
but also more wealth and prosperity. It was discovered 
that the church, both Catholie and Protestant, was the 
right hand power of the despotism, under which all per- 
sons and things groaned ; and that philosophy had been 
turned into a transcendental quibbling, to support church 
dogmas and retard the progress of science. 

The wrath of the sufficiently cultivated German schol- 
ars, liberals and patriots, was turned first against the 
weakest of the two great powers, against the church. All 
works of fiction, in order to be popular, had to be anti- 
Christian. 

Feuerbach, Schopenhaur and Czolbe did, from tlie philo- 
sophical standpoint, the same work as Strauss with his Life 
of Jesus, Bruno Bauer, the New Catholics, the Free Con- 
gregations and their head leaders from the critical and 
practical standpoints. Dogmatic Christianity was under- 
mined among the middle classes, which were pleased with 
the scorning frivolity of Heinrich Heine and his confreres, 
and a peculiar atheism sprung up, unreasoning and fa- 
natical, which had no justification in its own behalf ex- 
cept the hatred felt against Church and State. 

Meanwhile the scientists of Germany emancipated 
themselves from both theology and . philosophy, and 
achieved great victories unon all scientific fields, s© that 
science had become the only field of activity for the Ger- 
man mind. Science was popular, profitable and indepen- 
dent. So the ground was prepared for Yogt, Moleschott, 
Buechner, Haeckel/and other apostles of mechanical on- 
tology, to do away not only with church and priest, but 
also with the cause of both, God, soul, religion, freedom, 



HISTORY OF MATERIALISM. 83 

and traditions; to do away with all philosophy forever, 
and commence history anew on the two new dogmas of the 
new creed: <y 

1. This world with all that is therein is a piece of a ^ 
blind mechanism without intelligence or final cause, the 
work of necessity and casualty. 

2. There is only one way to arrive at truth, observa- 
tion and experiment, whatever cannot be conceived by 
the senses, exists not. 

So the school of modern materialism opened in Germa- 
ny, Its influence on England is evident, especially in 
Darwin's Descent of Man to which Haeckel lately added 
his Anthropogenic, to place man into the back ground of 
all animals. The blunders and arrogance of Church and 
-State in Germany and Austria, not science, are the causes 
of modern materialism, and a thorough reformation of 
both, radical in its character, will be the end thereof in 
this cycle of history. The nineteenth century can not 
go back to the old Paganism and the crude philosophy 
of Democrit and Epicure. Such a retrogression is impos- 
sible. We can not maintain society now on the materi- 
alistic creed. Neither the statesman and jurist nor the 
philosopher derives any benefit from it, and the commu- 
nity will not part with the ideals which make life tol- 
erable, virtue sacred, and freedom man's natural birth- 
right. We can not do without human nature as long as 
we are men; but materialism as it is now negates all human 
dignity and aspirations. The fanaticism against Church 
and State is a retribution, a necessary evil, a painful sore 
of the impure blood, which heals already, since the unifi- 
cation of Germany and the liberalization of Austria. Ma- 
terialism is a necessary evil, as long as the church under- 
goes not a radical change; but it is no philosophy, which 
explains the universe or affords a sound substratum for 
the construction of society. It will die out with the 
causes which re-produced it. It always comes with cor- 
ruption in public institutions, and disappears at the ap- 
proach of adequate reformation. 

-Ridiculous, supremely so, indeed, appears to us the 
crude materialism of some of our American writers, who 
repeat slavishly what Germans and Englishmen have said, 
in many eases years ago, and often refuted since then. 
They adopt a poisonous medicine without evil in the so- 
cial organism to be remedied. Our State affairs are inde- 
pendent of the church, and our priests and preachers are 
harmless creatures, and without influence on public af- 
fairs. Some of our materialists are mere amateurs in 



84 



THE COSMIC GOD 



science and children in philosophy. Others have heard 
or read so long ago, and are too indolent to hear, read, 
or think again. I can pay no regard to them in these lec- 
tures, and expect, they will neither hear nor read them, 
lam ready now to continue my regular course, and will 
continue in my next lecture on elementary ontology. 



DYNAMIC ONTOLOGY. 85 



LECTURE XL 



DYNAMIC ONTOLOGY. 



XiADiES and Gentlemen. — The question we discuss is, 
Is matter or force the substance of the beings in this 
universe? If matter is, then the ontology is materialistic; 
if force is, then it is dynamistic, as the Greek dynamis sig- 
nifies power or force. Let us see what we know about 
matter. 

The atoms of speculative science are metaphysical 
points without reality; therefore they cannot be accepted 
either as the substratum of matter or the starting point 
of ontology. 

With the atoms of speculative science the atomic forces 
also fall to the ground; especially as the latter are no 
more than abstractions of observable forces, arbitrarily 
attributed to imaginary atoms, so that we know no more 
and no better of atomic forces than of those observable in 
the bulk of compound matter. 

The atoms of chemistry have extension and weight; 
hence they bear no analogy whatever to the atoms of 
speculative science. 

There are as many kinds of atoms as there are ele- 
ments, viz., sixty-three, inclusive of Professor Bunsen's 
coesium and robedium, thirteen non-metalic and fifty me- 
talic; so that we know now of sixty-three kinds of matter. 

The molecule, which is an aggregate of atoms, is the 
smallest bulk of matter perceptible, and is supposed to 
possess all the attributes observable in the large bulk. 

The molecule may be an aggregate of atoms of two or 
more kinds of matter; and there are as many kinds of 
molecules as there are chemical compounds. 

flatter is inert, passive, and imperceptible, except by 
its qualities; it is moved, made active and perceptible by 
the forces which work on or in it, so that each quality of 
^matter is a manifestation of force. 

When we say we see matter, we mean to say that we 



86 THE COSMIC GOD. 

see something which reflects light ; hence we see the man- 
ifestation of a force. When we say that we can touch 
matter, we mean to say that we can place our hands up- 
on something which offers resistance; hence we have a 
sensation of that force. When Du Bois says the particle 
of iron is alwa3 T s the same thing, whether in the wheel of 
a railroad car, in a meteor, or in the blood, he means to 
say it is perceptible in the same manner, if effected by the 
same forces. The human mind can perceive ideas only, 
and these are expressed in matter by the changes to 
which the forces subject it. 

Matter is the residuum of bulk, mass, or body, after all 
forces are separated, a residuum which can not be analy- 
zed any further, because it is imperceptible. The phy- 
sicist and mathematician have to do with the forces ex- 
clusively, paying no attention to matter. The chemist 
investigates and contemplates the various processes of 
composition and decomposition by the forces which act 
in or upon matter. 

Matter itself is equally unknown to all of them, and is na 
factor in either science; because it is imperceptible. You 
take away the force of molecular cohesion or attraction 
and you reduce the solid, granite or meteor, to a fluid, 
then to gas, then to ether, i. e. y to zero, imperceptible to 
man, because it has no qualities, no forces exercise a per- 
ceptible influence on it. Let the forces play again on the- 
ficticious zero of matter, and it changes again into ether, 
gas, fluid, and solid, again perceptibe to man; i. e., you. 
can not perceive the zero, but you perceive the forces 
operating on it and manifesting themselves through it. — 
This will mislead none to deny the existence of matter,, 
for it always remains the substratum of perceptible be- 
ings, although matter without force is unknowable, and it 
may well be the creature of crossing forces. 

On the other hand, we are too well used to bulk, body,, 
and mass, to think of matter without force being imper- 
ceptible; and yet it cannot be denied that some time ago 
this very bulk, body, and mass, free of certain force, was 
imperceptible, can be made so again by the chemist, and 
is made so continually by the earth's evaporation and 
metamorphosis of particles akin to exhalation, which 
forms the atmosphere. 

The very coal which heats your rooms, engenders steam 
in your engines, or the matter which now forms the bod- 
ies of your trees, was a little while ago imperceptible car- 
bon, and your fires change it continually into the same 
state of imperceptibility. You see whether matter at the 
last instance is not the creature of crossing forces, without 



DYNAMIC ONTOLOGY. 87 

materiality, bulk, body, or mass, is a question not very 
easily decided. 

It must be admitted, anyhow, that anything in this 
universe we can perceive, know, or think is rendered 
perceptible and knowable by dynamic or static 
forces. We know of this phenomenal world, the various 
manifestations of forces, and no more. We can not build 
science on what we know not. Being entitled to build 
upon that only which we do know, and we certainly 
know the forces by their manifestations, we can adhere 
to dynamistic ontology only ; and the only question from 
our standpoint can be, whether dynamicism and spirit- 
ualism are not identical. 

The atomists understand this point well, and being un- 
able to deny the existence of force, resort to the hypoth- 
esis that matter and force are in fact one and the same 
thing. There is no matter without force, and no force 
without matter. The two terms are attributes of the 
same substance, two abstractions of the same subject; or 
also matter possesses force, i. e., matter is the subject, and 
force the predicate ; matter is, and force is its function. 
This explains not attractions at great distances, the the- 
ory of light, or the parallelogram of forces; but the atom- 
ist says he advances the best hypothesis at his command. 

Here the difficulties of atomism are numerous. The 
theory, on which those very same materialists rely, leads 
irresistably to the negation of matter, consequently also 
to the negation of force, so that nothing remains. The 
nothingness of the atom multiplied infinitely with itself, 
has always for its product the nonentity of matter. If 
force is the function of matter, which is not, then force 
also exists not. If both matter and force are attributes of 
the same substance, and matter is not, then it follows 
that force alone is the conceivable attribute of the un- 
known substance, and dynamicism is established .upon 
the ruins of atomism. 

The only materialist of high authority known to me 
who makes a plain confession of this difficulty is DuBois. 
He says this: "If one asks what remains, if neither force 
nor matter possesses reality, then those who stand with 
me upon the same standpoint will reply thus: "It is not 
given to the human mind in these things to reach be- 
yond a last contradiction," etc. "We possess sufficient 
renunciation to submit to the idea that at last all science 
reaches the limit, not to comprehend the essenoe of things, 
but to show the impossibility of such comprehension. So 
in mathematics, it is not the quadrature of the circle, or 
in mechanics, the perpetuum mobile, which science must 



88 THE COSMIC GOD. 

discover; it must show the impossibility thereof." Helm- 
holz makes similar confessions. 

However, this declaration of insufficiency merely says, 
from the atomistic standpoint, we reach in its last result 
in reality the nothing and in formality the contradiction; 
to which I take the liberty to add, therefore the atomistic 
standpoint is erroneous. You misunderstand the nature 
of matter, then you make force to a function of misun- 
derstood matter, to land finally in contradiction and ab- 
surdity. The results of science are correct, because they 
are not influenced by your theory. Invert the proposi- 
tion, say force is the subject and matter the predicate, 
iorce is active and matter passive, force is perceptible and 
matter is not, force exists independent of matter, although 
manifested therein only to human senses; and science cer- 
tainly losses nothing, for science must establish laws 
which are in force only, and all those last contradictions 
fall dead to the ground. That such is the fact without 
personification or poetical dreams is certainly demonstra- 
ble. 

Matter can be freed of some forces acting upon it, and 
others can be conducted into it, as is done every day; 
hence force and matter are separable and not identical, 
not in the abstract but in reality. You stamp or grind 
a solid body to particles, are you not expelling the force 
which connected them to a compact mass? You dissolve 
a powdered material to a fluid, are you not expelling 
force again? You transform the fluid into gas, have you 
not again expelled force by force? You weigh the solid, 
then the powder, the fluid and the gas, have you not pre- 
cisely the same weight in all instances? Here is evident- 
ly force expelled without loss of matter; therefore force 
must be immaterial and separable from matter. It is not 
a mere function of matter, and not being function, it must 
be substance. If you perform the chemical process, down- 
ward from gas to a lump of coal, you arrive at the same 
results precisely by conducting force into matter, and you 
are entitled to the same conclusions. 

Take another view of the matter. Take for instance 
Gay-Lussac's discovery, made in 1808, that different gases 
under equal pressure and temperature, are united to one 
body according to the simple volume proportion, so that 
the volume of the compound stands in simple proportion 
to the volume of its ingredients. Here you make one 
body of two or more, not by molecular force, without any 
change of weight. Two forces, pressure and heat, have 
been conducted into the matter, and changed its condi- 
tion, yet these forces were evidently not in that matter 



DYNAMIC ONTOLOGY. 89 

^which you changed, and being in now, show neither ex- 
tension nor weight. They must be immaterial and inde- 
pendent of matter. 

Again, we can see the independence of force from matter 
as often as we look heavenward. Where the atmosphere 
of our earth ceases, there is the end of matter — there be- 
gins space. The same is the case if looked on from every 
other mundane body. Space beyond the atmosphere is 
not filled with matter. The ancient atomists were con- 
sistent enough to adopt the vacuum; with them space is 
a vacuum. If all motion is in the atoms, then each must 
be in a vacuum in which to move; so must be every body 
■composed of atoms. The moving body must have vacant 
space. The moving body cannot occupy the same space 
occupied by other bodies. Our knowledge of mechanics 
makes the case still worse. If the earth, or any other 
body, would meet with perpetual resistance, its motion 
must be perpetually retarded, and it must come to a final 
suspension of motion, not in billions of years, as the usual 
-calculation runs, but in a very few myriads of years. 

If so, the retardation of planetary motion must have 
become observable somewhere; which, however, is not 
the case. All theories basing upon space resistance are 
illegitimate, because they rest upon not a single estab- 
lished fact. On the contrary, all facts known of plane- 
tary motion, demonstrate that there is no resistance in 
space, and no friction. 

In modern times, some atomists advance the hypothe- 
sis that every atom moves in a sphere of force, which is 
-already a confession that force is immaterial and inde- 
pendent. But then comes the chief difficulty. Our earth 
receives light and heat from the sun, and moves by the 
force of attraction exercised by the central luminary. 
The sun exercises the same influence on all planetary 
bodies as far distant as to Neptune — 2,853,600,000 miles; 
and probably beyond this. Furthermore, we suppose to 
know that a mutual attraction of the planets for each 
other exists, as we do know that every planet receives 
light from every other planet. Hence the whole space of 
the solar system is continually penetrated by the forces 
of light, heat, and attraction in lines crossing each other 
in all imaginary angles. If all fixed stars are suns and 
centers of solar systems, then all space is continually un- 
>der the same influences. If our solar system is not an 
independent section of the universe, then either all suns 
inust exercise mutual attraction, or move around a cen- 



90 THE COSMIC GOD 

tral sun; in either case all space is filled with these for- 
ces crossing each other in all possible angles. 

Here is the great difficulty of atomism. Forces being^ 
evidently at work in the immense space, it is no vacuum. 
If force is a function of matter, all space must be filled 
with matter, call it ether or zero. All matter consisting 
of atoms, space is an infinite continuation of atoms. But 
there rise a number of questions, first in regard to mo- 
tion; how can the earth or any other body pass through 
the space filled with atoms? If we say the solid body by 
its superior resistance and velocity dislodges the atoms 
from the space it passes, to which they always return 
after it is vacated; then the space atoms must be highly 
elastic, capable of being compressed, and communicating- 
the pressure from atom to atom. Where is that pressure 
to stop, and what can stop it? Each atom in this case be- 
ing agitated by two forces, its own and the impulse given 
it by the moving body, and each atom behind it by only 
one force. Where is the resistance in space to stop that 
motion of motion? If stopping somewhere anyhow by 
means unknown, then the pressure and temperature of 
the moving body, according to Gay-Lussac's experiment, 
acting on the atoms must unite them, and united they 
must be attracted by the earth; then the body of the 
earth must grow continually, which we know to be not 
the case. 

Again a body is elastic, if its particles can be compress- 
ed, i. e. they can change place and occupy the space of 
their pores. Hence elastic atoms must be such whose 
parts can change place. Therefore every space atom 
must consist of parts and be no atom. You may divide each 
atom as much as you please: you have the same question, 
at the smallest thinkable atom; you arrive precisely at 
the same absurdity. Therefore there can be no space 
atoms; but there is force in space, hence force is inde- 
pendent and immaterial. 

Next comes the question of conductors of force in the 
space. On what pinions do these forces travel? If we 
imagine light, heat and attraction issuing from the sun 
as forces, the corpuscular theory having become impossi- 
ble, they must strike every atom around that luminary, 
then every atom so moved communicates this motion to 
the adjoining layer of atoms, and so on, as the ring of 
waves enlarge, down through the entire solar system to 
Neptune, until this motion is received and reflected or 
revibrated by the various solid bodies. If so, every atom 



DYNAMIC ONTOLOGY. 91 

in the solar system outside the bodies must be perpetually 
and incessantly engaged in receiving and communicating 
these motions, as those forces work on without the slight- 
est intermission and work upon every pointin the space. 
In this case, it might be intelligible, how light, heat, and 
attraction reach the earth from the sun; but there is not 
the slightest room left for the light and attraction which 
the planetary bodies send to each other. All space atoms 
being continually engaged by the energy passing from 
the sun, no medium whatever is left, to conduct force from 
planet to planet, much less from solar system to solar 
system, and nobody can tell how we can see the stars or 
recognize the attractive influence of the planets. But 
we do see the stars, light, heat and attraction work alike 
all over the universe, hence the theory of space atoms falls 
dead to the ground. 

Next in order comes the theory of Mr. Eankin, in 
which I can see a mere subterfuge, although very poeti- 
cal. The atoms are not supposed to be displaced, but 
revolve around their cylindrical axes, as the waves of 
light or other forces pass them. 

This does not remove the difiiculties just discussed, and 
brings in also the question of elasticity. There must 
evidently be vacant space between those revolving atoms, 
or else they could not revolve; or, as the sun force strikes 
them, they must be compressed to pass the force. The 
first case is impossible, because there can be no vacuum, 
and the second is impossible on account of the nature of 
elasticity. Besides, what is that sun force which passes 
the revolving atoms? If it also consists of atoms, then 
atom dislodges atom continually in all space, it is all 
wheel within wheel in perpetual motion ; and the first 
question recurs; for there is evidently no room left for 
any other force function in all space. If it "is dynamic 
force which rolls over the revolving atoms, well then, 
there is force independent and immaterial, and we have 
no use for revolving atoms, or any other space-atoms, as 
independent and immaterial force is its own conductor. 

Atomism, from whatever standpoint you examine it, is 
impossible. But it is certain that, whatever we know or 
can know of this physical world, whatever science knows 
or can know thereof, is the manifestation of force. There- 
fore we must stop at dynamic ontology, and say, we know 
of this physical world that which manifesting forces re- 
veal to our senses and cognition. This must be the basis 
of all science and of all philosophy. Force is immaterial 
and independent. It is omnipresent and almighty, in this 
physical world. It is bound to no time, and no space where 



92 THE COSMIC GOD. 

there is no material obstacle, and governs all material 
things. The laws of nature are the laws of force working 
upon matter. 

Here is the grave of all materialism as a philosophy; 
and here begins philosophy proper. Force immaterial 
and independent of matter, the existence of which no 
rational observer can justly doubt, although it is neither 
bulk, body, or mass, and perceptible in its manifestations 
only, is the central point of all philosophy. It is Spino- 
za's substance, Rant's intelligible world, Hegle's absolute 
idea; Schopenhauer's will, and Hartman's TJnbewusstes. 
Each of them has viewed this central thought from another 
standpoint. There is truth and error in each and all of 
them. Let us see what we can adopt and what we must 
correct. We have now gained two important points, 
mind and force. Let us now investigate whether there 
is mind in force, or in other words, whether this omni- 
present and almighty force is intelligent, whether it is 
physical, psychical, unconscious or conscious, whether it 
is mechanical or has a will, or to be short, whether it is 
infinite madness or infinite Deity. This will be the sub- 
ject of my next lectures, 



BIOLOGY. 



93 



LECTURE XII. 



BIOLOGY. 



m What is life? This is a sorrowful question with many 
who either feel its heavy burden, or are (loomed to testify 
to its uncertainty, when friends are laid low, and leave a 
painful vacuum in the aching heart. But this is not the 
question I feel to-day able to discuss. I do not wish to 
impose tears on you. What is life, is also in science a 
very important question. It is a special science called 
Biology, from the Greek bios "life," and logos "discourse" 
or "treatise," the science which treats of the force or 
forces of life in general, as manifested in the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms. Any conception of ontology 
without a settled principle of biology is necessarily im- 
perfect; especially as this earth appears to be the mere 
pedestal upon which the living beings rest or move; forces 
and elements apparently have but one aim, viz.: to pro- 
duce and sustain life. 

My definition of life is this: Life is the differentiation 
of vital force which produces and develops individual or- 
ganism and preserves its identity. I say this is my defi- 
nition, for the definitions of English scientists and philo- 
sophers are bewildering and mostly illogical; because they 
are based upon mechanical atomism, which denies the 
existence of vital force. Buechner advanced the formula 
which most all of them repeat in different words. He 
says, "Thought, spirit, soul, are nothing material, not 
themselves body; they are the complex of homogenous 
forces grown together to a unity." He adds then, "At 
least we would not know, how to define spirit or force 
except as something immaterial, something which excludes 
matter and is its opposite." This is the oracle of the 
English scientists and also of Mr. Spencer. Life being & 



94 THE COSMIC GOD. 

complex of homogenous forces grown together to a unity, 
of course, there is no vital force. 

Philosophically, this is impossible, for things immate- 
rial can not grow together and form a unity, as growing 
together means the connection of all points in two sur- 
faces. Souls, spirits, thoughts cannot possible grow to- 
gether. Physically, the theory is overthrown by the 
constancy of each force in the parallelogram of forces. 
If life was a complex of forces, each of them must be 
traceable in the process. But life is not sound, heat, at- 
traction, or electricity; none of which is discoverable in 
the principle which maintains the identity of the individ- 
ual, notwithstanding all other natural forces working 
against it and effecting its dissolution as soon a life de- 
parts. 

Evidently we have before us in every living organism 
a force which governs the others for this specific purpose. 
Every constant relation of elements or bodies to one an- 
other, points to an overruling force in action for this spe- 
cific purpose. In the organic kingdoms, the immense va- 
riety of elementary relations to form and sustain here a 
tree, there a shrub, here an herb and there a blade of 
grass, here a mollusk, there a radiate or articulate, here 
a reptile, fish, bird, or mammal, and there a man, all 
made up of the same elements, governed by the same for- 
ces, necessitates us to adopt an overruling force which 
subjects matter and force, in order to assume this shape 
and no other, to be so large at its birth and grow so far 
and no farther, have this form, surface and color and no 
other, develop and live so long and no longer. All these 
limitations and modifications point to a special force at 
work which we call vital force. 

This vital force bears no similiarity to the other natur- 
al forces, to electricity, light, heat, sound, or mechanical 
motion. The most wonderful effect produced by physi- 
cal forces is in the crystal. Yet Du-Bois-Keymond who 
considers life "a very difficult mechanical problem," ad- 
mits in the same passage, that crystal and organism differ 
from one another like the mere walls of a factory and the 
artistical machineries which give it name and character. 
The most brilliant diamond has no more in common with 
the lowest organism than a flake of snow with the hy- 
draulic elevators in your stores or hotels. In the lowest 
organism is life, motion, assimulation and secretion, none 
of which is in the most beautiful crystal. The crystal 
forms of the minerals are mathematically fixed, so that 
in the detail, the relations of angles and planes to the 
crystalographic axis is unchanged. But the organic form 



BIOLOGY. 95 

can not be mathematically fixed. It is free in every in- 
dividual. Starting from the round cell, its outlines as- 
sume the most wonderful variety. There is no necessity 
in the relation ot angles and planes to the axis. Every 
plant and every animal develops its arch type with a cer- 
tain degree of freedom and variability, which must be 
the effect of a cause not at work in the inorganic world, 
for which we have no better name than vital force. 

The mechanical atomists, must banish life from the 
universe, in order to have a dead mechanism. But here 
it is in the organic kingdoms; how can it appear here, if 
it is not there? How can an effect be produced without a 
cause? They treat this question as that professor did his 
visitor whose queries he could not answer; he sat the man 
out doors, and all problems were solved. We have no 
dogma to defend and may treat the question with a little 
more courtesy. 

Like the general survey, so the investigation into the 
particulars of this phenomenon will lead us to the exist- 
ence of vital force. Helmholz is honest enough to stop 
short at the very sensible theory: "Either organic life 
has commenced sometime to exist, or it has existed from 
eternity." This is a plain admission of ignorance as to 
the origin of life. 

On onr planet, this is certain, life had a beginning. — 
The geologist has examined into the crust of this earth 
and traced life from its most simple start, both in num- 
ber and form, in structure and size, to the Flora and 
Eauna of this day, with man at the head of 25,000 genera 
of vertebrates. The earth is supposed to consist of a cen- 
tral and perpetual fire encased in a molten metallic mass 
of primitive and unstratified rock, with a solid nucleus 
for its center. Around this mother rock the crust of the 
earth has been formed in successive ages of convulsions 
and revolutions. The crust next to the mother rock, 
called the Archean age, shows no remains of organic life. 
The next crust called the Silurian age contains organic 
rocks, in which the lowest forms of organic life, small in 
number and simple in construction, are imbedded. There 
are the algae representing the vegetable kingdom, some 
radiates, mollusks and articulates, representing the ani- 
mal kingdom, which must have lived in water much more 
salted and thicker than our sea water. One step higher, 
there is the crust or stratum called the Devonian age, 
in which fishes and two higher types of marine vegeta- 
bles make their appearance. Again one step higher, and 



96 THE COSMIC GOD 

we arrive 1 at the Carboniferous age, in which reptiles 
have left their remains, and they increase upward to the 
next or Secondary age. Above this, we arrive at the 
stratum called the Terrtiary age, and there for the first 
time we meet mammals, dicotyls and palms. There is 
the beginning of the large animals and trees of our earth's 
surface, upon which at last man appears, creation's last 
and most wonderful work. The law of progression is 
well recorded in the rocks, so that we can trace back the 
history of organic life to its unquestionable beginning on 
this globe, and read its progressions from stage to stage 
up to man and his surroundings. 

The first and lowest animal or plant which made its 
appearance on this globe was made up of organic matter 
which, in its morphotic structure and inherent force is en- 
tirly different from inorganic matter. All organic beings, 
from the lowest sea weed to man, are composed of 
cells, some of which are so minute that they can be ex- 
amined only under the most powerful magnifier. Still the 
smallest as the largest cell is a thing of its own in mor- 
photic structure and inherent force. Of some of the cells, 
though by no means of all, we know the form, structure, 
chemical ingredients and their proportions; but the force 
which unites those ingredients in those proportions to an 
organic cell of that particular nature is a profound mys- 
tery. 

These cells of which all animate beings are made, which 
form the starting point of every organism, and make up 
ail its tissue^ and organs, bones, blood, muscles or nerves, 
root, stem, bark, or fruit, are little bags, as may be best 
observed in the cells of the common elder pith or the 
coarse cells of the orange. The envelop, called the cell- 
wall or membrance, contains a fluid or gelatinous matter 
and some round particles or granules, in which the cen- 
ter of the cell is formed. These cells are of different 
shapes and chemical composition, not only in different 
individuals, but also in the different parts of the same 
body. The long thread-like cells which give the fibrous 
character to the flesh, do not differ originally from the 
cells which build up the brain, blood and bone, glands, 
nerves, and arteries. So throughout the whole living or- 
ganism, the cells constituting different tissues have their 
peculiarities for each, and yet originally all the cells are 
alike. Without any scientific investigation taste informs 
us, that the various vegetables and the parts of different 
animals whose flesh we eat, are composed of different 



BIOLOGY. 97 

cells, in regard to chemical constituents, and yet the mi- 
croscope shows but one and the same kind of cells. Na- 
ture constructs the grape, the orange, the chicken, the 
pigeon, of cells, made for this very purpose; so the brain, 
blood, bone, muscle, lung, etc., are composed of cells fit 
only for this and no other purpose. 

The construction of these tens of thousands of chemic- 
ally different cells, made of the same elements, to make 
up the various kinds of vegetable and animal organism, 
and in each organism the different parts, and the parts 
of parts, fitted together by the blastema or matrix in the 
animal, is the fundamental mystery of organic life, for 
which none of the known forces of nature give us the 
least account. And yet these cells grow, fill up, divide, 
live, change perpetually their constituents in the organic 
body only, and are transformed into inorganic matter as 
soon as life is defunct. So we have before us unquest- 
ionably a series of phenomena most wonderful and intri- 
cate, entirely different in kind from all others known to 
science, and peculiar to themselves only; phenomena 
which point forcibly to a different agent, for which we 
have but one name, and this is vital force. 

Please, ladies and gentlemen, not to forget the thread 
of my humble argument. Organic life is a phenomenon en- 
tirely different from all others. It is not the complex of 
the known forces of light, heat, sound, electricity, attract- 
ion or mechanical motion, much less of the atomic for- 
ces. Where th£n is the definition of life by our English 
cotemporaries, Mr. Spencer's included?^ Evidently no- 
where. Life had a beginning on this globe, and all our 
knowledge testifies that it could appear in organic matter 
only, in the cell or cells. The cell either made itself, 
which no naturalist will admit, or there must be vital 
force. Therefore the atomists hard pressed with the per- 
tinent question, how did the cell come into existence? re- 
sort to various dodges and subterfuges. The first is the 
generatio equivoca, which means the production of cells or 
organic beings from inorganic matter in an unknown 
manner. In my opinion the argument amounts to noth- 
ing. It pushes the question back a little way without 
changing it. The question would still be, by which force 
is inorganic matter transformed into organic, the inani- 
mate into animate? and the answer would be again vital 
force. Mr. Schwan, the father of our knowledge of the 
cells, denies the possibility of generatio equivoca. In France 
a long and bitter controversy was carried on on this very 
subject, with Mr. Pasteur and the academy on one side > 
7 



98 THE COSMIC GOD 

Pouchet, Joly, and Mussett on the other, withont any re- 
sult contrary to Schwan's assertion. In Germany, it was 
Carl Yogt who maintained the generatio equivoco, but 
without any support from the numerous and shrewd ex- 
periments to this end, by prominent scientists. At last 
it was finally demonstrated in Pfluegner's laboratory, 
that water boiled a certain length of time was incapable f 
of breeding infusoria, because the germs were destroyed by 
heat, showing conclusively the fallacy of generatio equiv- 
oca. The last of great scientists, in our country, Prof. 
Agassiz, has shown in one of his last lectures "All life 
from the Qgg;^ hence this dodge is dead. 

Next in order come the monads, the most simple of mi- 
croscopic organism, mere points of living beings, now 
considered vegetable spores or germs. Mr. Haeckel re- 
fers to a little marine creature, described by Mr. Huxley 
and named Bathybius Haeckelii, mere little slime bags sup- 
posed to live in the ocean at a depth of 12,000 to 24,000 
feet, as the beginning of organisms. The question is, 
whether those monads, Bathybii and the like creatures, 
are not organic remains of larger beings which died and 
dissolved in the salt water. It appears they *are. But if 
they are not, it has no bearing on the main question. — 
Whether any morphotic structure by a monad, Bathybius, 
protoplasm, spore, germ, red snow, gory dew, elephant, 
or man, it is under all circumstances something differ- 
ent from inorganic matter; it lives and ^he question al- 
ways is the same, by what force? On the contrary, those 
miniature beings without any discoverable organism go 
far to prove, that life is no mechanical problem; it de- 
pends on no mechanism; life is prior to the mechanism in 
which it manifests itself. 

Therefore Mr. Haeckel himself is not satisfied with his 
Bathybian proof, and advances this: "If you do not adopt 
the hypothesis of generatio eguivoca (Urzeugung), then at 
this simple point of natural evolution you must have re- 
sort to the miracle of supernatural creation." You see 
Mr. Haeckel is honest, and says the hypothesis of genera- 
tio equivoco is merely an inductive necessity, as a maxim 
of natural research, but it is no fact. Yes, yes, Mr. 
Haeckel, I would add, this is so; without the acknowledg- 
ment of vital force as a force of nature, organic life is a 
miracle. 

Mr. ¥m. Thomson went beyond Haeckel and advanced 
another dodge. He admits that organic matter could not 
at any time originate from inorganic matter, and suggests 
the first organic germs may have reached this earth up- 



BIOLOGY. 99 

on meteors or aerolites, falling down upon it, after having 
traveled through space filled with organic germs; or those 
meteors may be fragments of a destroyed earth, upon 
which such life existed. 

There are, however, too many objections to this hy- 
pothesis. The crust of the earth shows distinctly that 
life had a beginning on this planet; hence there is not 
the least ground to maintain, it had no beginning on other 
planets. If a beginning it had here, there, or anywhere, 
the question remains precisely the same, by what force? 
Besides the aerolites which have fallen on this earth are 
composed of some twenty well-known elements, mostly 
iron, all contained in this earth. No new element was 
discovered in them, and but one-third of those which 
compose our earth. There is no cause whatever to sup- 
pose that life came with those aerolites, which contain no 
other new element; or that life originated on an earth of 
twenty elements prior to one of sixty. Again, all meteo- 
ric stones by the velocity of their fall, if by nothing else, 
are encased in a molten crust, like a coat of varnish, and 
come in a strongly heated state; so that, if there ever had 
been any living germs on any, according to Pfluegner's 
experiment, it must have been destroyed long before it 
could have reached our earth. 

No less unfortunate than Thomson's is Mr. Fechner's 
hypothesis. He thinks organic matter is its first and or- 
iginal form, from which inorganic matter was prepared, 
by fire we suppose, or as coral reefs are built up. Good, 
Mr. Fechner, I would say, the hypothesis is genial and 
novel; but we are afraid it proves too much in our favor. 

If all matter was originally alive, then vital force was 
prior to all other natural forces, and our definition of life 
becomes self-evident. First all atoms were alive, hence 
all were controlled by vital force; then the atoms died, 
fire changed them into the inorganic body, then and there 
the other forces made their appearance, probably as mere 
reflexes of the vital force. The only difficulty with Mr. 
Fechner's hypothesis is, no means are left to prove it. 

All other dodges of this kind, feeling matter, world's 
ether, the fall of gelatinous matter, having been declared 
mythical, we have arrived again at the beginning, what 
is life? We could close here, and insist on our definition, 
without fear of refutation from any scientist, as all the 
other hypothesis and theories prove a failure. But the 
matter is much too important to have it rest on a mere 
hypotheses. Let us seek all the truth we can ascertain 
on this important point, to gain an established principle 



100 THE OOSMIC GOD. 

of biology. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I invite you 
to my next lecture, when I hope to continue the discuss- 
ion on the subject of biology. 



BIOLOGT. 101 



LECTURE XIII. 



BIOLOGY.— PART II. 



Permit me, ladies and gentlemen to open this second 
lecture on biology with a passage from Shopenhaur. He 
says (Willen in der Natur, p. 59) " It certainly follows 
from my system, that every being is its own work. Na- 
ture which never lies and is naive like genius, testifies to 
the same, how every being merely takes the spark of life 
from another precisely of its own kind, and then grows 
up before our eyes. It takes the material from abroad, 
form and motion from itself, which are called growth and 
development. So also empirically, every being stands 
before us as its own work. But the language of nature 
is not understood, because it is too simple." 

Numerous are .the objections, which have been raised 
against this passage, and yet it is correct. It says in a 
metaphorical sense only : that every living being stands 
before us ls its own work. This means, that the causes 
of its existence, growth, and identity are in each organ- 
ism itself. Every real phenomenan must be explained 
by its inhorent principle. It is unscientific to derive for 
instance, the nature and character of a man before us 
from the antedeluvian radiate, or from his supposed ape- 
like ancestor. As sure as we now speak and act as men 
and not as monkeys, so sure all our actions and reactions 
rise every time from our own constituting principle. 

The same precisely is the case with every organic be- 
ing. Life appears new and peculiarly individualized in 
every organic being. The germ only is from the parent- 
al stock, and'consists of a cell or cells containing in min- 
iature the characteristics of the parental organism and 
the ability of being unfolded to a free being, by the dif- 
ferentiated vital force. In consequence of the germ, every 



102 THE COSMIC GOD. 

new organism must run through the same cycle of changes 
of form as its parents; and in consequence of the differ- 
entiated vital force, new characteristics appear in every 
new individual in a manner of apparent freedom and in- 
dependence; so that no two organic beings are perfectly 
identical. 

In objection to this theory it might be advanced, if vi- 
tality is a force, then like force in general it must be one 
and universal; if so its phenomena must appear every- 
where with mathematical precision the same. To this, I 
have to say, vital force is universal and does manifest it- 
self in identical forms everywhere, although not with 
mathematical precision; but it is also individualized, and 
in this form it appears with freedom, because it is life and. 
not merely mechanical force moving inert matter. Let 
us understand these points. 

That vital force is one and universal is evident by the 
identity of characteristic manifestations in all organic be- 
ings. All consist of cells and the various arrangements 
of same ; hence the groundwork of life is the same in all 
forms, in as far as the morphotic structure of the cells 
is the same in all organisms, and different from 
crystals in three particular points: 1. The cell never pro- 
duces geometrical solids, it maintains universally the 
globular form; 2. It does not combine homogenous ele- 
ments, but chemically different substances; 3. The cell is 
limited in size, while the crystal is not. 

Again, in all cases the young plant or animal begins 
its life in a small germ, runs through the three states of" 
embryo, development and maturity, and ends in death, 
i. e. the vital force leaving the organic structure, it can of- 
fer resistance no longer to the other forces which decom- 
pose and dissolve it. 

Furthermore, all organic beings live by the same in- 
ternal' functions of absorption, assimilation, secretion and 
excretion. Whether the tree absorbs inorganic matter 
from earth and atmosphere by its roots and leaves, to 
prepare its own kind of sap, on which it subsists, lives, 
and grows; or the animal consumes organic food passing 
through a chemical process in the intestines, to prepare 
the new blood necessary for the nutrition of that particu- 
lar animal, it is always the same process of absorption 
and assimilation on the part of the cells which constitute 
that particular body. Whether the tree exhales the su- 
perfluous oxygen or the animal the superfluous carbon,, 
and excretes the combusted material in any form, it is ini 



BIOLOGY. 103 

all cases precisely the same process of secretion and ex- 
cretion. 

And lastly I will mention the universality of the sexu- 
al instinct for the preservation of the race, which mani- 
fests itself with striking similarity and equal force in all 
classes of organic beings. 

Here are four great characteristics of life, which have 
nothing in common with inorganic matter and its forces, 
and are invariably the same from the lowest plant up 
through the whole series to man. The elementary struc- 
ture, development, mode of subsistence, and propogation 
of the race are universally identical. The sameness of 
phenomena in all cases points directly and distinctly to 
one and the same cause. Although the individuals in 
which these phenomena appear are multitudinous, stilt 
the vital force must be one and universal. 

But we see organic individuals only, each of which 
stands before us as its own work, manifesting a certain 
degree of freedom and independence in its morphotic pe- 
culiarities. We can not deny their individual existence, 
as little as we can doubt their dependence on the sub- 
stance. Whatever philosophers may have advanced on 
the problem of individuation, its possibility or impossi- 
bility; it disappears before the universal fact, that the or- 
ganic kingdoms exist of individuals only, each of which 
is, and moves around its own center. Besides, there are 
the following especial points, which necessitate us to rec- 
ognize individual existence in the organic kingdoms. 

Every organic being sustains itself by the labor of its 
own organism, which changes foreign matter into this 
particular body. Look at the tree; the cells of its roots 
absorb water and metal from the earth, which rise through 
its pores to all extremities, while the leaves inhale from 
the atmosphere the carbon, oxygen, and other elements; 
all of which are chemically changed by the organs of the 
tree, to a sap peculiar to this tree and necessary to its 
sustenance, to rise and fall in the wooden channels, and be 
changed to roots, stem, bark, foliage, buds, blossoms, and 
fruits of that particular kind, and no other. If the ab- 
sorbed material undergoes not the chemical change in the 
tree, it kills the same. But changed by the organism, 
it produces here the pear, apple or plum tree, bud, blos- 
som and fruit, there the vine, grape, and its sweet juice, 
here the orange and there the apricot, etc., all by the 
work of the tree's peculiar organs. Here is a lily, there 
a rose, here a violet there a narcise, so entirely different 
in shape, size, odor and color, all under the influence of 
the same light, heat and electricity, all sustained by the 



104 THE COSMIC GOD. 

sap from the ground and the gases from the atmosphere. 
In all cases, we see the individuality of the plant with its 
own organs at work, to live and thrive. 

Look at any animal, or rather look at man, and you 
have individuality perpetually manifested. Here you 
have a vast number of various cells in union and harmony 
to form the human organism. Each cell or set of cells 
differs materially from all others. There are brain cells, 
muscle cells, nerve cells, lung cells, blood cells, bone cells, 
etc., each of different chemical proportions. All these 
cells are subject to continual looses by secretion and ex- 
cretion, and must be continually supplied by the blood, 
each with the particular chemical ingredients and in ex- 
act proportion, as required by its nature. The body 
stands in perpetual connection with the outer world. The 
exchange of materials, taking in and paying out, goes on 
without intermission. This restless process of breathing, 
feeding, and digestion, to prepare fresh blood, to roll both 
fresh and'old in a perpetual circle to every part of the 
body and back to the heart, going and coming continu- 
ally, changes the foreign matter of our food and inhala- 
tion, into the proper chemical material to feed and sustain 
every cell according to its peculiar wants, and to carry 
off the combusted particles, to be purified for future use 
or to be excreted. The human organism prepai^es human 
blood from the same material, from which the cat makes 
cat blood, the dog, the lion, the tiger each his own blood, 
simply on account of the difference in the organism. The 
organism itself, without any interference from abroad, 
carries on this perpetual and intricate process, by which 
it is, grows and thrives, so that the perfect individuality 
of every person or animal is demonstrated by its self-sus- 
taining organism, and we have clearly before us, every 
being as his own work. 

Individuality is manifested next in the will and the mus- 
cular motion. Every individual has a will of its own, and 
the muscles obey the will. I do not wish to be under- 
stood that vegetables have no will; there is will every- 
where. I only wish to refer here to animal will. 

Although there are certainly class instincts peculiar to 
entire races of animals; still there is so much variety also 
in these class instincts "hat the presence of will can hard- 
ly be doubted; and instinct itself is but steady will. — 
When I move my finger, lift up my hand, walk, look on, 
listen, or whatever change I effect, will is manifested 
which prompts certain muscles to the performance of 
mechanical labor. This will with its muscular instru- 
ments is in the individual and not outside thereof. From. 



BIOLOGY. 105 

whatever center it may come, from an unconscious nerve 
center, or a conscious mind, it comes from the center of 
this individual and no other. . Whether center or mind be 
affected by inner feelings or outer impulses, the will and 
subsequent motion are always in and by the individual it- 
self. Mr. Darwin's theories of natural and sexual select- 
ions, if there is any truth in them, fully demonstrate will 
and individuality in every man, animal and plant. The 
volitions are so numerous that no number can express 
them; and yet each proceeds from some organism and not 
from the other, and establishes its individuality. 

Next in the chain of individual and independent mani- 
festations we come to the very limit of all natural science, 
-as Du-Bois-Keymond calls it; we come to the fact of con- 
sciousness. I do not refer here to the wonderful self- 
consciousness of the reasoning man; I merely refer to the 
conciousness of the lowest or highest animals. It feels 
cold or warm, pain or pleasure, sees red or blue, exten- 
sions or forms, hes.rs sounds and distinguishes them, tastes 
sour or bitter, smells pleasant or offensive, and is conscious 
that it feels, sees, hears, tastes, or smells so and not oth- 
erwise, and is conscious of its own individuality. All 
physical forces do not account for the simplest sensation 
much less for the consciousness thereof, and least of all 
for the necessary reflection, I am conscious, hence I am 
an individual, and none can feel, see, hear, tastes or 
smell for me. No body can participate in my pain or 
pleasure; he can only sympathize with me, if he has ex- 
perienced similar feelings in his own consciousness. So 
we know a priori that each individual is a thing complete 
.and independent in itself. 

Last, but not least ia this review of facts, we come to 
t;he influence of emotions on each particular organism. — 
G-ladness, success, happiness, quicken the circulation of 
the blood, accelerate the digestion and increase the pro- 
cess of assimilation. Sorrow, fear, disappointment, anxi- 
ety, perished hopes, undermined prospects, discouraging 
aspects, etc., exercise a detrimental influence upon the or- 
ganism, and not unfrequently ruin the constitution. A 
false friend deserts me, I sit and mourn, hate to eat or 
drink, the blood courses slower through the veins. A dear 
friend dies, grief overcomes me and culminates in a deliri- 
ous fever. I love hopelessly, and my heart's blood is con- 
sumed. I am wronged, dishonored, neglected, deserted, 
forlorn, I feel repentance, remorse or shame; and it un- 
dermines my health and ruins my constitution. Who 
will describe the numerous and various cases of persons, 



106 THE COSMIC GOD. 

pining away in painful emotions, or being enlivened by 
gladness or happiness; or how differently these various 
emotions effect different persons and different animals? 
None can, because, there is freedom and iudependence in 
every organism. It all depends on the individual and 
independent of all persons and friends. 

Here then is individuality in the self-sustaining organ- 
ism, will, consciousness, cause and effect of the emotions; 
and each characteristic of individuality is a manifestation, 
of individual freedom and independence. Therefore vital 
force is not only one and universal but also individual,, 
hence my definition of life is established in fact. It is no- 
hypothesis, it is the theory suggested by the heterogen- 
eous facts. 

At the same time, it is proved that vital force is a real- 
ity, an immaterial substance. Life had a beginning on 
this globe. It could originally and can now manifest it- 
self through the cell only, and by the unification and har- 
monization thereof; hence there must exist a force to 
bring forth and to govern organic matter and organic 
beings. That agent being at the same time one and uni- 
versal, differentiated and individualized, say like electric- 
ity in the galvanic battery insulated on a glass plate; it 
must be an immaterial force, which can be separated from 
the matter in which it operates. It can not be the mere 
function of the organism, for it is in the cell, it is alike 
in the most different organisms, it is one and universal, 
it can be separated from the organism. It is no heritage, 
because every being stands before us as its own work. — 
It is in fact, because it governs matter and forces in the 
preservation of the organic individual's identity. It is 
not a conglomeration or complex of forces, because it pro- 
duces effects, such as assimilation, prodnction, will, con- 
sciousness, and emotion, in which none of the known 
physical forces are detectable. Hence it is a peculiar 
force. Can any naturalist, scientist, chemist, physicist, or 
philosopher tell us, why we should not call it vital force? 
If none can, and so I do varily believe, then my thesis is 
established, and we have a solid fundament of biology. 

If this is so, then this universe is no piece of dead 
mechanism. There is vital force, there is life in it. Force 
is not only immaterial but also alive. Here begins an- 
other* aspect of ontology. There is life. We live be- 
cause there is life. So we have gained a third and very 
important point. We have now mind, force, and life 
three realities to lead us into the province of teleology, 
and metaphysics. Ladies and gentlemen we have crossed 






BIOLOGY. 10T 

the threshold in the temple of pure cognition and higher 
knowledge. Let us go on upward, upward, to the utmost 
limit of human capacity. 

"The mind of man in this world's true dimension 
And knowledge in the measure of the mind; 
And as the mind in her vast comprehension. 
Contains more words than all the world can find. 
So knowledge does itself far more extend. 
Than all the minds of man can comprehend." 

"A climbing height it is, without a head, 
Depth without bottom, way without and end; 
A circle with no vine environed, 
Nor -comprehend, all it comprehends. 
Worth infinite yet satisfies no mind, 
Till it that infinite, of the Godhead find." 



108 THE COSMIC GOD. 



LECTURE XIV- 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 



Ladies and Gentlemen — How did the numerous spe- 
cies of vegetables and animals come into existence? This 
problem of biology or cosmology has become very im- 
portant in philosophy, and has engaged human intelli- 
gence of the highest order to solve it satisfactorily. Be- 
sides the existing Flora and Fauna, we have before us 
three instructive volumes, compiled by the maker of all 
things in the beginning, in characters universally legible, 
to be interpreted by the disciples of science, from which 
we ascertain the origin of species. These three volumes 
are, the crust of the earth with its fossils, the ocean teem- 
ing with life, and the embryonic phases which every liv- 
ing being has to pass before it becomes an independent 
individual. Whatever we read not in either or all of 
these volumes concerning the origin of species, we know 
not; and all the facts read therein are susceptible of a 
variety of explanations. Therefore we have now three 
theories on the origin of species, to which I may be per- 
mitted to add a fourth. 

The theory first in importance is that of Mr. Charles 
Darwin, an improvement on those of Carus, G-oethe, La- 
marck, G-eoffroy and others, by an addition of a number 
of hypotheses, apparently combined to a system of evol- 
ution, or actually a theory of transmutation. This theory 
starts out with the hypothesis that originally organic life, 
in its lowest forms, was started on this globe in one or 
more typical beings, whatever their number, morphic and 
physiological structures were — Mr. Darwin is silent on 
these points — gifted with the latent capacity of un- 
limited variability, fit to adapt themselves to any condi- 
tion in ocean, land and atmosphere, by the acquisition of 
new organs and the useful adaptation of those possessed, 
to maintain themselves under all changes of conditions, 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 109 

in the combat of existence, i. e., against inimical influ- 
ences of the elements, and hostile concurrents for subsist- 
ance and females. Those creatures which failed in the 
adaptation or the combat, either remained in the lower 
elasses of organisms, or were destroyed by those of bet- 
ter adaptation, more force or skill in the combat of exist- 
ence. These organs, internal or external, acquired by 
adaptation were, by another hypothesis, inheritable, if 
useful, which is called the hypothesis of descendency, 
resting upon the other hypothesis of natural selection, 
resting again upon the facts of domestic selection in a 
few instances. To all these hypotheses comes one more, 
called the law of correlation, a law, a something without 
a name or definition, which in case of the useful adapta- 
tion of one or more organs to new conditions, made per- 
manent by descendancy, changes and re-adjusts the whole 
organism in harmony with the acquired organs, instincts 
and organic process. If, for instance, a graminivorous 
animal, by a change of conditions, would be forced to 
subsist on animal food, its teeth would adapt themselves 
accordingly. This change wOuld become constant (for 
which, however, no proof exists) by descendency ; and by 
the law of correlation the stomach and the other intes- 
tines would be changed and re-adjusted in correspond- 
ence with the teeth. • This morphic transformation and 
transubstantiation would involve also a change of appe- 
tites and instincts, and all the physiological changes of 
bones, muscles, nerves, size, shape, color, hair, wool, 
feathers, or bark. 

It must be borne in mind that in this theory there are 
united the hypotheses of unknown creation of the first 
types, unlimited variability, combat of existence, de- 
scendency, and the law of correlation, none of which is 
supported by facts, and all of which must continually co- 
operate to produce new species. Every one of those 
hypotheses, however, has been refuted by Naegeli, Baum- 
gartner, Wigand, Lange, Yon Hartman and others. 

The second theory is that of Mr. Baumgartner. He- 
starts from the law, " Omne vivum ex ovo, omne ovum ex~ 
ovaria." Our knowledge of life reaches not beyond the 
egg, or germ cell ; hence the origin of species must have 
its discernable cause in the egg of the ovary of the livings 
organism ; and there he supposes to find it by heteroge- 
neous generation, or the metamorphosis of germs ; i. e., 
it is in the nature of the organism that, from time to 
time, one or more of any type produce eggs, or germ cells, 
of an advanced type, which then becomes constant. So 



110 THE COSMIC GOD. 

the development progressed from type to type, from spe- 
cies to species, genus and variety, by the periodical meta- 
morphosis of germs. Such heterogeneous generation is 
actually found in nature, but not beyond the production 
of varieties, never to produce species. In this case we 
have first the beginning of life on this globe as a fact, a 
miracle, an unknown and unknowable anomaly, so that 
the hen must have preceded the egg for evermore. In 
the second place we have the same unwarranted leap to 
a far-fetched conclusion, as in Darwin's theory. Mr. 
Darwin says, because in domestic breeding certain use- 
ful organs are made more useful, and this is inheritable 
to a certain extent, therefore nature must do the same 
thing universally and continually, although domestic 
breeding is premeditated, never succeeds beyond slight 
variety, and can not be made constant in all cases. Mr. 
Baumgartner says, because a metamorphosis of germs, 
as an exception and mostly among the lowest class, oc- 
curs, productive of varieties, therefore nature must do the 
same thing universally and continually, and so produce 
species. Both conclusions are illegitimate. Both Darwin 
and Baumgartner take the hypothesis of unlimited varia- 
bility for granted without the slightest evidence, and the 
assumed law of correlation without any definition. Both 
theories are conglomerates of hypotheses and auxiliaries, 
none of which has been or could be supported by scien- 
tific evidence. 

The third theory is that of Mr. Wigand, the great 
botanist, and most forcible opponent of Darwinism. He 
advances the creation of type cells or type protoplasma, 
in which ail the capacities and abilities of the species, 
morphic, anatomical and physiological, together with all 
the instincts and appetites of each organism, were origin- 
ally packed and stored away, to be developed and brought 
in use in millions of years, under the changes, convul- 
sions, catastrophes and new conditions of land, sea and 
atmosphere. This is a mere hypothesis, of course, which 
admits of no scientific evidence, as we possess no means 
of obtaining any of those type cells or protoplasma, or to 
ascertain their inherent force, if we could procure them. 

Each of these three theories, taken for granted, it is 
maintained, will account for the origin of species ; conse- 
quently, the facts which have a bearing upon this prob- 
lem must be susceptible of a variety of explanations ; and 
so they are, as the scientific adherents to any of these 
theories amply prove. Again: none of these theories ac- 
counts, or begins to account, for the origin of life on this 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Ill 

globe ; while each of them, aside of all other agencies, 
must resort, and does resort, to an organic force which is 
extra-organic before it can become organic. I prove this 
so : — 

Cuvier, Flourens, Agassiz, Pictet, Humboldt, and others 
maintain that within the bounds of human knowledge of 
historic and prehistoric ages, no change of type or species 
has been noticed. Pictures of animals upon Egyptian 
obelisks, brought to ancient Rome ; animal mummies 
brought from Egypt, and an investigation by Cuvier con- 
cerning the Ibis then and now, as well as the elephants 
found in northern ice-fields, fully testify that no change 
whatever has taken place in those animals. The sheep, 
goat, ox, ass, and camel were the same domestic animals 
in the time of Father Abraham as they are now. Wheat 
taken out of an Egyptian grave was sown and the same 
wheat which we possess now was reaped. The same 
cereals and fruits on which man and beast subsist now, 
are noticed without change through all pages of history. 
The plants .which Passalaqua has found in Egyptian 
graves, as described by Knuth, the botanist, are identical 
with ours, although some varieties have been lost, it ap- 
pears. Hence, within historical ages, there is no trace of 
unlimited variability, and looking beyond that, Agassiz 
well remarked, that the polyps building up the reefs of 
Florida for at least 30.000 years, are still the same polyps 
precisely. 

As far as the existing Flora and Fauna are concerned, 
■unlimited variability is not discernable ; therefore, if this 
was the case in previous stages, it ceased to exist with 
the constant types before us ; hence they are the result- 
ants of former developments, from the infusorium and 
algae up to man and the cedar of the Lebanon. Had this 
evolution been effected by mechanical means, it must 
have been very slow and gradual, with all gradations 
and transition forms from species to species. But that is 
exactly not the case ; there is no systematic chain of or- 
ganisms on earth. Not mere fissures but gaps which can 
not be bridged over, separate tne species in numerous 
instances, so that Mr. Carus supposed the links missing 
on this earth must be somewhere in the moon or in the 
planets, from which the earth was separated. 

The same precisely is the case with the fossils. The 
testimony of evolution is imbedded in the crust of the 
earth, but not evolution by any mechanical means; for 
there also the transition forms are missing, and no trace 
of genetic unity is left. This is admitted on all hands. 



112 THE COSMIC GOD. 

But then the Darwinists say, what we have not dis- 
covered yet we may discover hereafter ; for all we know 
such transition forms may exist and be discovered any 
time. To this, however, we could well reply, whenever 
you will have made those discoveries, then we will take 
them into consideration, for which we have no cause now, 
as that which might be proves nothing in science. As 
far as our knowledge reaches now, the factors of evolu- 
tion are not, and were at no time, of a mechanical na- 
ture. But we have a better reply than that — the ocean 
and the embryo prove that such transition forms never 
existed, hence can never be discovered. In the ocean we 
have before us the original and primary generation, from 
the protoplasm at the bottom of the sea, up to the great 
monsters of the deep. In thick, warm, salt water, the 
generation of organic beings took its start ; thus much is 
certain, and continuous production, propagation and ex- 
tinction of life went on undisturbed and uninterrupted. 
The ocean was not exposed to the violent eruptions and 
catastrophes as was the land ; hence, in the ocean the 
original picture of organic creation is preserved intact. 
A thorough knowledge of oceanic biology is equal to the 
best information we can obtain of the first work of or- 
ganic creation. But there, and there again, the frag- 
mentary character in the system of organisms, without 
specimens of transition from species to species. 

The same is the case in embryology. Our knowledge 
of the various stages of the embryo from actual observa- 
tions is very limited, because it is too difficult to make 
them among higher animals. Yet it is maintained that 
the embryo runs through all phases of organisms as its 
ancestors did in their natural development from species 
to species. Then this ideal semblance of those various 
stages to certain animals is converted into a proof, that 
the higher organism must have evolved from those lower 
organisms, which it represents at different times, as 
though an ideal semblance was any proof of genetic unity, 
and more than an ideal semblance was certainly never 
discovered in any embryo. 

The analogies, in the best known cases, are far-fetched, 
and the conclusions based thereon are very doubtful, to 
say the least. But granted they are not, in order to ar- 
gue from the standpoint of the Darwinists, they prove 
again the gaps and breaks in the systematic chain of gen- 
eration by evolution ; for the embryo runs only through, 
a few stages, and offers no points of transition from spe- 
cies to species, or genus to genus. It runs, after all, only 






THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 113 

through the stages of known animals, and the unknown 
must remain unknown. Consequently, there are no such 
transition forms, none will ever be discovered, and evo- 
lution can not be established on mechanical principles. 

Besides, only the Darwinists attempt to account for the 
origin of species by mechanical agencies. Mr. Wigand 
begins with an organic force which makes type cells or 
protoplasma. Mr. Baumgartner knows of organic force 
only throughout the whole process. The same is the 
case where Mr. Darwin speaks for himself. 

Sexual selection and the ornaments acquired to this 
purpose, spring from no mechanical principle. It is in- 
stinctive, connected with a choice, directed to an object, 
consequently it is will and intellect connected with an 
appreciation of the beautiful, neither of which can be re- 
duced to mechanical principles. Again : if descendency 
is altogether mechanical — which I can oot see — the law 
of correlation is entirely psychical and altogether inde- 
pendent of the organism. What is the law of correla- 
tion ? A principle or force which works a change, phy- 
siological and morphic, in the whole body, because the 
one or the other member thereof has been changed by 
mechanical causes. 

This morphic change, however, depends on the causa- 
tive force, a force which must be active everywhere and 
at all times to effect this re-adjustment; without it, the 
whole theory falls to the ground, and with it, we have 
before us a psychical principle as the main cause of evol- 
ution. As nothing can be its own cause, the animal itself 
is not the cause of the law of correlation. As this phen- 
omenon is universal, so must be the cause, which in many 
cases must work simultaneously on several individuals, 
which stand in no connection with each other, as for in- 
stance the peculiar appendages of an insect, and the 
flower from which it seeks its nutriment. 

Therefore, when we speak of an organic force, we can 
not refer to something which is in this or that plant or 
animal only ; or to anything which this or that organism 
produces. When we say force, we certainly mean some- 
thing which produces phenomena, and not a phenomenon 
produced ; we mean something causative, and not some- 
thing passive. The organic force which is the cause of 
evolution, must be extra-organic, cosmic, vital force. If 
-Darwin, Baumgartner and Wigand, must admit, and do 
admit, directly or indirectly, our first principle of biology, 
viz., the cosmic existence of vital force — or is there any- 
body who can tell the difference between organic force* 



114 THE COSMIC GOD. 

and vital force ? — and with their respective theories they 
can not account for the origin of species, and the origin 
of life on this globe, and 1 can, starting from the same 
principle; then my theory, which makes the fourth, is 
certainly preferable to the three former, especially as it 
includes their main points in their proper places. Let 
us hear this fourth theory. 

Evolution and differentiation as the fundamental laws 
of creation are now admitted on all sides, and Mr. 
Haeckel well remarks, that they are fundamental in the 
Biblical cosmogony. Differentiation signifies the indivi- 
duation of beings from and by the universal substance ; 
and evolution in this connection signifies the systematic 
and rising succession of organisms from the lowest to the 
highest in the process of individuation. The substance 
is psychical. Matter is known to us only in the form of 
incoherent and heterogeneous elements, which, if not 
united by an active force, must remain apart forever. 
Matter retains in all forms that negative quality of dis- 
solving in its elements, if not prevented by active force. 
Whether matter itself be created or uncreated, is indiffer- 
ent here ; the first act of creation of this or any other 
planet was the action of a central force upon inert and 
homogeneous elements, in counteraction of their negative 
quality of separation, to subject them to the creative and 
forming principle. This central force, from which all 
forces in matter are materialized derivatives, is a function 
of the substance which is will, intellect, life, God, and 
partakes of the same nature precisely, i. e., it is not only 
psychical ; it is will, intellect, life. It is an effect, and 
must, in its quodity, be like its cause. Yital force, which 
is also will and intellect, is the central force of this and 
every other planet. It appears as the unconscious plane- 
tary soul, if you wish to call it so, in its materialized 
state, and remains mind under all conditions, will, intel- 
lect, and life. It overcomes inert matter, prevents its 
dissolution in heterogeneous elements, and stands in per- 
petual relation to and in harmony with itself in all planets 
and suns, according to its own eternal laws. It is perpet- 
ually and continuously at work to govern matter, and to 
liberate itself from matter, to become itself again, i. e., 
conscious and self-conscious, in individualized lives. Its 
first success in this direction is the production of the pro- 
toplasm in the depth of the sea. This is generatio equivoca, 
although science can neither imitate nor explain it ; still, 
if vital force is the central force, then the miracle is ex- 
plained. Pjotoplasma are little, very minute building- 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 115 

stones, from which vital force, constructs all organisms in 
the whole system of life. These protoplasma may have 
lived thousands of years in the depth of the ocean, before 
matter was so far under the control of vital force, to unite 
some of them and form a cell ; for a cell is already an ar- 
tistical structure. Now thousands of years life may have 
existed in cells only, and uncountable millions of them 
must have perished before matter was so far under the 
control of vital force, and sufficiently qualified to serve as 
material to the building up of organisms; for organic be- 
ings are made of organic matter, and subsist on organic 
matter. Also tbe vegetable requires organic matter for 
its subsistence ; hence countless millions of protoplasma 
must have preceded the cells, and countless millions of 
■cells must have preceded the lowest organism to qualify 
matter for organic purposes. The cells are the building 
material for the vital force. They do not give charac- 
ter to the organism, nor can they produce any ; the or- 
ganism gives character to each of them in the various be- 
ings and the various members of each. Therefore Wi- 
gand's hypothesis of type protoplasma or type cells is 
false and unnecessary to explain the origin of species. 

Organic matter, as far as we know, is just as inde- 
structible and unchangeable as metallic matter. Notwith- 
standing the continual work of death and decay, organic 
matter remains in its compound condition upon the earth's 
crust and in the waters of the ocean as well as the bottom 
thereof. It is continually increasing by the very labor 
of the organisms, changing inorganic into organic mat- 
ter. Every plant or animal that dies adds to the bulk of 
organic matter, and renders higher conditions of organ- 
ism possible. Therefore after a sufficient bulk of animal 
matter had been laid up in the household of nature, and 
vital force, as the formal principle, had advanced to the 
•organization of the perfect cell, that force could now bring 
forth everywhere, as the state of the ocean, land and at- 
mosphere admitted, organisms adapted to each age and 
condition of the earth and its various parts. The efficient 
-cause of the first organisms was not in the cell ; it was 
■cosmic in the vital force, which weaves cells and destroys 
them to increase its material for more and higher organ- 
isms , hence the first organic types did not spring from 
the cell or cells by the combat for existence, subsistence, 
and females, not by natural selection, descendency or 
-otherwise mechanically. When vital force had succeeded 
in reaching the next highest step in forming the germ 
<;ell, the egg, it had also material enough accumulated to 



116 THE COSMIC GOD. 

develop the germs into organic beings of different indi- 
vidual characters^under different states of ocean, land and 
atmosphere, with sufficient material left to provide for 
organic beings, organic food preceding them in time, as it 
were, to prove design and premeditation. 

We know that nature loves variety. It loves to exhaust 
all possible forms. There are type metals, type crystals, 
type infusoria, and in no case any of Darwin's or Baum- 
gartner's supposed causes could have been co-operative ; 
why should not the same central force of nature have, in 
the same manner and by the same cause, produced type 
vegetables, type animals, species and races of all kinds ? 
None can see the necessity of either Darwin's or Baum- 
gartner's theory and hypotheses. 

Besides all this, if you run up and down the whole or- 
ganism, you will find that all centers in man. Man is the 
complex of the entire organism that has come to our 
knowledge ; and all parts of all organisms are harmonized 
and perfected in man. When the fathers imagined a. 
higher order of beings, viz. : the angels with wings, be- 
cause man is debarred of these organs of the bird, they 
did not take into consideration that human hands con- 
troled by human mind are far superior to wings. The 
whole organism consists of various divisions of the human 
organism among various species of vegetables and ani- 
mals. Therefore modern biologists succeed so well in dis- 
covering physiological and morphic semblances betweea 
parts of man and parts of this or that animal , but they 
will never succeed in discovering the human organism in 
any animal. If we take the fact as it is before us, it sim- 
ply teaches that the central force had to run through all 
these various phases of organisms, as expounded above, 
before it could realize itself in the self-conscious center 
called man. That there are leaps and gaps in the system 
is simply because the species have no genetic relations — 
they are all ideal, and ideal only. The evolutions were 
not external, they were internal in nature, with their 
cause in the vital force, hence in perpetual connection 
with the whole of nature, and especially this ocean, land 
and atmosphere ; which were by no means systematic in 
their various formations, in our sense of mechanical sys- 
tem. The crust of the earth is full of violent transitions, 
eruptions, catastrophies, sudden revolutions without sys- 
tematic connection with previous conditions. 

This fourth theory admitted, viz. : that the cause of 
evolution is in the internality and not in the externality 
of nature, in the vital force itself, and not in the morphic 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 117 

structures it produces, in the psychical substance and not 
in matter, then the facts advanced by Darwin, Baum- 
gartner, Wigand and the others, fit it very well. Nature, 
or rather its central force, may have employed all those 
means, combat for existence, natural selection, variabil- 
ity, descendency, correlation, heterogeneous generation, 
metamorphosis of germs, and a hundred other means, 
psychological or mechanical, under different states, cir- 
cumstances and combinations of influences, external or 
internal, to reach its object and to realize itself, al- 
though neither or all of these auxiliary means account 
for the origin of species, and the appearance of man on 
earth as the complex of the whole organism. 

It must be remarked here that Mr. Darwin, in regard 
to the combat of existence to obtain females and suste- 
nance, has overtaxed his imagination. The equal num- 
ber of male and female births, a universally acknowl- 
edged fact, was left out of the account. Evidently this 
factor must be dropped in the vegetable kingdom and 
among monogamous animals, as most of them are. Among 
birds and pigeons especially, the birth of one male and 
one female of each brood at the time is the rule, and the 
pair will stay together and propagate, if not separated by 
violence. Among polygamous animals my observations 
and experiments have taught me, that those of one breed 
will keep together in peace, and the males divide the 
females among themselves by common consent. Combats 
among animals on this account are very rare, except 
where the females are destroyed by the hands of men, and 
also then they are limited to a very short time annually, 
so that in reality the whole factor amounts to very little. 

Mr. Darwin appears to imagine this earth, land and 
ocean, as rather a small patch, overstocked from the be- 
ginning by a vast number of living beings, with scanty 
provisions of food made for them, so that the combat for 
subsistence was perpetual. On our real earth, however, 
after so many thousand years of increase in the animal 
kingdom, the soil still offers plenty for the support of all, 
and not one half of it can be used yet. There it an afflu- 
ence and superabundance in nature, which Mr. Darwin 
evidently did not take into fair consideration, or else he 
could not possibly have laid so much stress on the com- 
bat for subsistence. All the traceable effect this factor 
may have produced is, that the weaker members of a race 
or species may have been thrown back from the original 
•center of the family. This is actually the case among 
men, and undoubtedly also among animals. The earth 



118 THE COSMIO GOD. 

always was large and rich enough for the animals, for 
they were not tied down to one spot as man was by agri- 
culture and despotism. The animals migrated freely. 

The fourth theory accounts for the appearance of life 
on this globe and its progress by evolution to the con- 
stant types before us, provided it can be proved, which I 
will attempt, that there is will, intellect, system and de- 
sign in this universe, outside of all organic beings. This 
leads us into the question of teleology, to be discussed 
next. 

We have arrived at the inner court of the sanctum of 
philosophy, duly cleansed of many prejudices, and law- 
fully prepared to open the sealed book of efficient and final 
causes, on which all questions of religion, moral governr- 
ment, education, the whole fabric of society depends. 



ON TELEOLOGY. . 119 



LECTURE XV. 



ON. TELEOLOGY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — "We begin this evening to 
speak on Teleology, the end, aim and object of the things 
in nature, and of nature itself. The word telos. end, aim, 
purpose, or object, was introduced in philosophy by Ar- 
istotle, and I use the term teleology in this sense, as most 
German writers do, and John StuartMilL partly did; al- 
though the word has been used differently by theologians 
and scholastic philosophers. What is the object of all 
these things? what is the end and aim of the whole world 
of existence? why is it? what purpose is in all this? These 
are questions which every thinking man must have pro- 
posed to himself, some time or another. Do all things 
exist merely to be, to change, and to disappear, or must 
they fulfill another destiny, serve other purposes, and 
reach other ends and aims? Does all nature exist to and 
for itself, because it must, or is purpose in its existence? 
These are the main questions, to be discussed in teleology. 

Some naturalists, and materialists especially arc op- 
posed to teleology, because, chiefly, it has proved dama- 
ging to the progress of the natural sciences. Lord Bacon 
has started this idea, and Baruch Sninoza has built his sys- 
tem on efficient causes exclusively. God and nature have 
no ends or aims in view, according to Spinoza. Still nat- 
uralists like Bergmann, Leuchart, Milne Edwards. Eseh- 
rieht, Yon Baer, Fechner, Agassiz, and others, and phil- 
osophers like Leibnitz, Kant, Trendlenburg, and Lotze 
have admitted the inevitable necessity of teleology in 
philosophy, and its utility as a maxim of research. 



120 THE'COSMIC GOD. 

The main causes of this difference of opinion 'are these: 
Teleological speculations were pressed too far and too 
much in the detail, so that they became ridiculous, and 
nugatory to science. The philosophers, and especially in 
France maintained to know the ends and utility of every 
object in nature. When Ohrysipp advanced, the horse 
was made to draw wagons and the ox to drag the plough, 
he did not know that the horse may be used in the 
plough. When it was maintained, the Negro was born 
to be the slave of the white man, or nations exist for the 
support of thrones and their occupants, the teleology was 
evidently false. When others insisted upon, that the 
beautiful colors in the vegetable and animal kingdoms 
served no other purpose besides pleasing the eyes of man 
the teleology was one-sided. When others completely 
turned the order of things, and said the bird's feet have 
been constructed so by a benign providence, in order to 
enable them to roost upon the branches of the trees, pro- 
tected against many a danger ; or the teeth and intestines 
of the carnivorous animal were so constructed by an All- 
wise Creator, to enable the animal to subsist on the flesh 
of others, they only proved their utter misunderstanding 
of the teleological idea. Therefore Mr. Holbach said, 
"Those who discover beneficial ends everywhere, are like 
the lover who sees nothing but perfection in the object of 
of his affections." Let us add thereto, and those who see 
every where the want of beneficial ends are like hypo- 
chondriacs who will never be pleased. 

Besides some of those enthusiastic thinkers, instead of 
seeking to discover the causes of phenomena and to as- 
certain the laws thereof, as science should and must pro- 
ceed, ingeniously guessed the utility and ends of natural 
objects and their qualities, and called their guess work 
science, as Mr. Darwin often does. Still it can not be 
maintained, that science should exclude all teleology, as 
we know it has led and leads to many valuable discover- 
ies, as Mr. Darwin often proves. Mr. Cuvier had so well 
studied the teleology of organism, that finding one pet- 
rified tooth of a fossil animal, he constructed the whole 
animal accordingly, and gave rise to a new science. He 
discovered almost mathematical certainty in the relation 
of the bones to each other in the same body, so that one 
bone ©r a part thereof, or even a tooth, sufficed him, to 
build up the whole animal as it must have lived. 

The next cause of difference in opinion was the anthro- 
pomorphous conceptions of God and nature. The house- 
hold of nature was looked upon like a human family af- 
fair, God and nature were made human in theory and 



ON .TELEOLOGY. 121 

practice, and then the utility and ends of all natural ob- 
jects were expounded from that standpoint; so every- 
thing must have its knowable end, there must be no 
waste in nature, there must be nothing too much and noth- 
ing lacking any where, every being must be happy in its 
sphere, exactly as a wise man would arrange his house- 
hold affairs. God and nature were measured by the nar- 
row guage of human wisdom and, as a matter of course, 
were found wanting. There is, however, in nature an 
incalculable waste and perpetual destruction of life. — 
There is, in the* realm of nature, pain, suffering, misery, 
destruction, and death, as well as joy, pleasure, happi- 
ness, and goodness, and pessimism is entitled to the phil- 
osopher's most earnest reflection. Still, all of this entit- 
les none to the conclusion, that there is no plan, no de- 
sign, no grand object, no final cause or causes in nature. 
It rather suggests to every reasoner that, in order to con- 
struct a satisfactory teleology, the anthropomorphous con- 
ceptions of God and nature must be dropped. God is no 
man and nature no dame, and the household of nature 
mnst be measured objectively, by the facts which it pre- 
sents, and not by our feelings, wishes, hopes, desires, or 
prejudices. 

The last objection to teleology is purely materialistic. 
The materialists want no final causes, no ends, aims, de- 
signs or purposes in nature ; because they want a dead 
universe, a lifeless, loveless, and thoughtless piece of 
mechanism, s self-moving, self-sustaining, and self-adjust- 
ing automaton, like Mr. Huxley's man, without any God, 
anthropomorphous or absolute. But as soon as you speak 
of ends, aims, designs, or purposes in nature, they say, 
you must pre-suppose an intellect in or above nature; an 
intellect which designs and executes, hence an almighty 
and supreme intelligence, which is God, whether called 
by this or any other name ; the very thing which those 
materialists do not wish to admit. 

As a maxim of natural research it may do, i.e., we may 
purposely close our eyes to the spiritual or intellectual 
side of nature, in order to see clearer its mechanical side 
and better understand these laws. But in philosophy, it 
^will certainly not do. We must see both sides; if possible 
we must view the whole to arrive at the truth. There- 
fore we must discuss teleology. 

• The most general and least holding ground of gross 
materialists is, they will not admit the existence of any- 
thing not perceived and not perceivable by our senses. 
Then they say, if there was an intellect in or above this 



122 TIIE COSMIC GOD. 

nature, why is it imperceptible? We answer first with a 
passage from the book of Job: 

"But wisdom, whence shall it be found? and where is 
the place of understanding? Man knows not its price; 
nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep saith: 
It is not in me; and the sea saith: It is not with me. — 
Choice gold shall not be given in exchange for it; nor 
shall silver be weighed for its price. It can not be weigh- 
ed with gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx and sap- 
phire. Gold and glass shall not be compared with it, 
nor vessels of fine gold be an exchange for it. Corals and 
chrystal shall not be named; and the possession of wisdom 
is more than pearls. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not be 
compared with it; it shall not be weighed with pure gold. 

"But wisdom, whence comes it? and where is the place 
of understanding? since it is hidden from the eyes of all 
living, and covered from the fowls of heaven. Destruct- 
ion and death say: with our ears have we heard the fame 
of it. G-od understands the way to it, and He knows the 
place of it. For He, to the ends of the earth He looks; 
and He sees under the whole heaven: to make the weight 
for the wind; and He meted out the waters by measure. 
When He made a decree for the rain, and a track for the 
thunders' flash; then He saw, and He declared it; He estab- 
lished it, yea and searched it out. And to man He said: 
Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to de- 
part from evilis understanding." 

Job in this beautiful poem simply says, I see intelligence 
everywhere, but I can not understand the essense of this 
powerful medium underlying, regulating and governing 
all things. We know, that nothing is perceptible to our 
senses per se. Matter is imperceptible, until the influence 
of forces render it perceptible to human senses. Force is 
imperceptible until it manifests itself in matter. We 
know force and matter exist, but we also know that our 
senses perceive them not in a state of isolation; hence we 
surely know, human senses can perceive matter or force 
by and in their combined manifestations only. We know 
them, each and all by induction. We certainly know 
just as well and by the same method the existence of in- 
tellect in or above nature. 

We hear the words, or examine into the deeds of intel- 
ligent beings; we weigh the ideas thus presented on the 
scales of our judgment, and decide, intelligence is the 
cause, words and works the effect. We can not perceive 
the intellect, "It is hidden from the eyes of all living." 
as force without matter or matter without force. When 



ON TELEOLOGY. 12& 

the Bible states that God said to Moses, "No man can see 
me and live," we may add, no man can perceive with his 
senses, intellect, intelligence, force, or even matter unless 
under the influence of force. 

And yet, who can deny its existence, and assert there 
is no intellect? While he admits or denies, he acts under 
its influence; without it he can do neither. While I now 
speak and you listen, not to the mere sound of words, but 
to ideas, definitions, theses, arguments, and conclusions, 
intelligence stands in perpetual report to intelligence by 
the mediation of articulate sounds and auditory organs^ 
ganglia, and brain fibres, all moved by the intellect. — 
Here it is in this very moment, and yet we see it not, can 
not perceive it with our senses, not even imagine it. Our 
knowledge necessitates us to acknowledge three substrata 
of essence, viz: matter, force and mind or intellect, each 
of which is imperceptible in its isolation; and on the uni- 
versal law: "Nothing can be changed without a cause ex- 
ternal thereto influencing it," we must maintain that the 
changes in matter, force, or mind from the imperceptible 
to the perceptible are caused by reciprocal causation. 

Still it is no more difficult to comprehend the nature 
and substantiality of the intellect than of any force at 
work in the realm of nature. Force is immaterial hence 
psychical, so is the intellect. Force is a susbtratum of 
things, so is the intellect the substratum of all thoughts 
and their monumental objectivity. Force becomes known 
and perceptible to man by its manifestations in matter, so 
does the intellect in words and works which are its man- 
ifestations. You can not imagine matter without force, so 
you can not imagine thoughts, words, and mental works 
without intellect. There can be no machine at work 
without propelling force, no motion without motive power, 
no music without a musician, no resultants without a sub- 
stantial cause. We know certainly as much of the nature 
and substantiality of the intellect, this no rational mate- 
rialist will deny, as we do know of the nature and sub- 
stantiality of force. 

I maintain, we know more and better of the intellect 
than of the forces in general. We know the manifesta- 
tions of forces by the effects exercised on our organism,, 
when we have become conscious thereof by the mediation 
of the iutellect. Hence all knowledge of force is with us. 
a posteriori. We have an indirect knowledge thereof. — 
Our intelligence, however, is in our consciousness direct- 
ly, not carried into it by any agency whatever. Every 
person is conscious of his own intellect; hence every one 



124 THE COSMIC GOD. 

knows its existence, nature and substantiality a priori, di- 
rectly and with the utmost certainty possible. 

Illustrate so: I am certain of the presence cf artificial 
heat in this temple, by the sensation I feel different from 
what I felt outside of the building. I am conscious of 
this sensation by my intellect. Still this is not certain, 
for the temperature of the atmosphere or of my body may 
have changed meanwhile, and I imagine artificial heat 
where there is none. But there can be no doubt to me, 
that I am now in this temple, because I know it by no 
agency outside of my own intellect. The objects outside 
of myself undoubtedly are, although I possess in myself 
their images aDd ideas only. I could not imagine or 
think them, if they were not. The image presupposes an 
original, the idea a suggesting object; but after all and 
with all the ingenious arguments and formulations by 
Ueberweg and Czolbe, my knowledge of all things out- 
side of me is indirect, a posteriori; therefore the imper- 
fection, the error, the combinations of phantasy to be 
corrected by the intelligence. This is certainly not the 
case with man's intellect; I know myself a priori; I and 
my intellect are identical, hence my knowledge of it is 
the most certain I possess. All which must be proved in 
teleology, concerning the intellect, is its existence and 
substantiality outside of man. 

Having taken the first bulwark of materialism, let us 
open on the second. Force in nature is regulated by law, 
i <?., under given circumstances it manifests itself so and 
always, produces these and no other effects. This con- 
stancy of cause and effect, established by experience and 
experiment, is the law of the force under consideration. — 
The laws of nalure are the laws of forces. So, for in- 
stance, we know as universal law that heat rises, or heat 
expands. Once knowing the law of a force or cause, in- 
telligence reverses the order, to discover the cause from 
the effect or effects before it. Illustrate so: We know 
heat expands. Seeing the mercury rise in the thermom- 
eter, we conclude, the heat increased, for there is more 
expansion, or seeing the mercury fall, we conclude, there 
is less heat now in the same locality. 

Here is synthetical truth a 'priori: Every phenomenon 
in nature is the effect of a cause, and every cause is sub- 
ject to its law, upon which all structures of science and 
philosophy are reared. It is the law of causality. All 
naturalists, mathematicians and philosophers must sub- 
mit to it, or rather each of them starts from it. There is 
no effect without its cause, no cause without its law. 



ON TEOLOOGY. 125 

This truth is, first, in the human intellect spontaneous- 
ly. Since man exists, he has sought cause behind each 
effect, although he did not always succeed in finding th« 
correct one; and has always expected the same effects 
from the same cause. He always must have considered 
this law universal, it must be in the intellect. Experience 
teaches the law of isolated cases, its universality is spon- 
taneous in the intellect. None can think of a human in- 
tellect in unobstructed activity without this synthetical 
truth, which is one of its attributes, manifested in the 
lowest as in the highest processes of reason. Therefore 
intellect and law of causality are inseparable. Preyer 
maintains: "That (the knowledge of) causality is an orig- 
inal capacity of the understanding, prior to all experience, 
and an a priori category, has been known already to Kant. 
That this is the only category, this cognition of Schopen- 
hauer, is probably the greatest philosophical progress since 
Kant. ' Helmholz also adopts this theory. 

This truth is, secondly in all nature outside of the human 
intellect, confirmed by all human knowledge, observation, 
experience, and experiments, as far as science has penetra- 
ted into the mysteries of existence. Here is already some- 
thing universal in nature outside of the human intellect 
which is also in it, the law of causality, and it is the es- 
sentiality and motor power of both. This law in man is 
in his intellect and inseparable from it; hence this same 
law in nature outside of man must be in an intellect. — 
Well then, here we have already an intellect in nature 
outside of man. Still we do^not wish to achieve so easily 
so important a victory over materialism, especially as 
its champions wish to be met on their own battle ground. 
Let us try again. 

The law of causality being admitted, we all agree, that 
nothing in this universe stands above or beyond the law. 
But as the forces and elements are heterogenous, and each 
follows its own law or laws, still the universe, as far as 
we know, is one in order and harmony, the forces of na- 
ture must either converge to the one single purpose of 
sustaining permanently this order and harmony, or one 
superior force must control all of them, or else there must 
be continual conflicts in nature among elements and for- 
ces, which we know not to be the case. Consequently 
there is co-operation, co-ordination, and sub-ordination in 
nature, which is its law of laws, or force of forces. 

Illustrate so: All parts constituting a body, be it a 
man, a bird, a house, a factory, an earth, or a sun, must 



126 THE COSMIC GOD. 

be harmonious in their co-ordination and sub-ordination, 
and thus co-operate continually, to make the existence of 
that respective body possible. If a wheel or screw in a 
machine is not constructed according to the law govern- 
ing the whole machine, the order and harmony thereof 
is destroyed. If the heart of a human being be too large, 
or his stomach too small relatively, according to the law 
governing his whole organism, then the order and har- 
mony thereof is destroyed. It is universally so, although 
each part of every body be governed by its own laws, 
the whole as a unit must be governed by a superior force, 
or the various forces must converge in this one par- 
ticular point of sustaining intact that particular unit or 
body. 

Here then is teleology, here are final causes. In every 
unit you may single out in this universe, infusorium or 
man, fungus or palm tree, crystal or sun, there is final 
cause before you, there is teleology, there is end, aim pur- 
pose, and design. And if you then rise from the individ- 
ual objects to the universe as a unit, you have before you 
always the same teleology, the same, end, aim, purpose, 
and design of preserving the whole intact as a harmo- 
nious unit. There is the same final cause in the grand 
totality of nature as in every minute object thereof. 

Here then is final cause and final causes. We leave it 
to the materialists to decide, as they please, whether these 
ends and aims are reached by the converging nature of 
all forces, to meet at these teleologicai centers, or whether 
-one superior force governs the others and directs them to 
this end ; and take them by their own word : " Where 
there is end, aim, purpose, design, teleologicai center or 
centers, there must be intellect to design and execute;" 
this intellect in or above nature must be allmighty and 
allwise, and can only be called God, that very God whom 
they wish to strike out from the nomenclature of science 
and philosophy. 

But I am not going to accept this important conclusion 
on the authority of materialism. Having now laid out 
the basis of teleology, I will examine into the particulars, 
to convince you, that there is just cause for every honest 
thinker, to adhere to teleologicai and theistical philoso- 
phy, upon the very shoulders of science and all its J)ril- 
liant achievments. 



WILL AND INTELLECT IN NATURE. 127 



LECTURE XVI. 



WILL AND INTELLECT IN NATURE. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — Let us look upon the sub- 
ject of teleology from a reversed standpoint. Let us see 
whether we can not discover will and intellect in nature 
by the strictly inductive method, and in full harmony 
with natural science. If we succeed in this point, then 
let us say there is no will without an aim, and no intel- 
lect without design and purpose; hence if there is in na- 
ture, outside of man, will and intellect, there are end, aim, 
•design, and purpose; there is teleology. 

Seeking to find in nature, if possible, will and intellect, 
means we investigate whether there are any facts in na- 
ture which necessitate reason to acknowledge the exist- 
ence of will and intellect independent of man; for to prove, 
means to necessitate reason by logical conclusion, to ac- 
cept as a fact one naturally contained in another and ac- 
knowledged fact. Therefore, although knowing, as we do 
already, that every object of nature as well as the cosmos 
itself is a teleological center, and represents end, aim, 
purpose, design, and proper execution, consequently there 
must be an intellect at work in this nature, or above it, 
so that we might justly maintain we have continually be- 
fore us the manifestations of intellect in the universe; we 
discover behind all objects an efficient and intellectual 
cause to select and apply proper means for carrying into 
effect ends, aims, designs, and purposes pre-established; 
Still we have no clear idea of will and intellect them- 
selves, which we know now by conclusions only, and not 
by their own criteria; and of whatever we have no clear 
idea by its own criteria in our intelligence that has not 
for us the force of certainty and necessity. Let us make 
the attempt to form clear ideas of will and intellect in na- 
ture independent of man. 

In our lecture on biology, we have seen that vital force 



128 THE COSMIC GOD. 

differentiated always manifests, more or less, a certain de- 
gree of freedom. Therefore, no two plants, and no two 
branches, leaves, blossoms, or fruits of the same plant ar& 
actually identical; each manifests some difference by 
which it is distinguished from all others of its kind. 

It hardly need be said that this is the case, only more 
so, among animals, especially of the higher types, no two 
of which are exactly identical. The higher you rise in 
the scale of organism, the more conspicuous are these 
characteristic differences in individuals of the same race 
or family, so that among us Caucasians the approximate 
identity of any two persons, also twin brothers or sisters, 
has never been established. The higher the vital force 
rises in its differentiation, the closer it approaches fixed 
individuality, and it reaches it in the highest types of hu- 
manity. In the origin of species, the lower types are in 
a state of mutability and variability, while the highest 
ones are individually fixed. 

The repeated assertions of modern fatalism, concerning- 
iron necessity in nature, as though man was incapable of 
governing and directing matter and force, subjecting and 
applying them to his purposes — are entirely false if ap-. 
plied to the organic kingdoms, in which, as in vital force, 
general laws and individual freedom are observable ev- 
erywhere. All objects existing according to their inhe- 
rent laws, are free, the law makes them free. Freedom is 
limited by outer violence only. All nature and every in- 
dividual thereof is free, where no disturbance from out- 
er violence takes place. In consequence of universal free- 
dom, the individual possesses the inherent power to devi- 
ate from the general law; and in consequence of this in- 
herent power of deviation, no two individuals are exactly 
alike; the man who trains fleas to perform on a sheet of 
white linen, knows one flea from another, as we know 
one rose from another by the appearance of tints and ar- 
rangement of leavlets, also without the aid of the micros- 
cope. So freedom is visible everywhere also to the na- 
ked eye. Let us now examine what is freedom substan- 
tially. 

I define, freedom is the actualization of an inherent will- 
There can be no freedom without a will, and in every act, 
of freedom which is actualized, will is the cause and 
freedom the effect. Therefore it is certain that in the two 
realms of organisms, will is actualized and manifested in 
every individual thereof; therefore, it must be there in- 
herently and permanently. One need not adopt the 
whole dogma of Schopenhauer, viz., will is the world's- 
substance; or even refer to E. von Hartmann's elaboration. 



WILL AND INTELLECT IN NATURE. 129 

of the 3©gma, and must still see the presence of will in 
the manifestations of freedom. 

Is not this anthropomorphous speculation? Do we not 
transfer our human will to animals and plants? The 
Darwinists can certainly not raise such an objection to 
our proposition, for with Mr. Darwin the origin of spe- 
cies depends entirely on the presence of will in every in- 
dividual of the two kingdoms of organisms. The orna- 
ments and improved songs of the male bird, for instance',, 
are purposely acquired to please and captivate the atten- 
tion of the female; which demonstrates will. Prehensile 
organs and defensive appendages grow out of the animal's 
body, according to Darwinism, by the repeated exertions 
of the animal's will. In fact, the whole system of Dar- 
winian evolution is based upon the principle of teleology r 
carried into every detail or organism, always tacitly 
postulating the presence of active will in every organic 
individual. If we could accept Darwinism as an estab- 
lished fact, teleology and the existence of will would be 
proved eo ispo. Therefore if the Darwinists subscribe not 
to Schopenhauer's dogma — i. e., will is the worlds sub- 
stance — they must anyhow admit its inherent and perma- 
nent existence in every organic being. 

But aside of Darwinism, the proposition is demonstra- 
ble by facts of actual observation, as Schopenhauer and 
Hartmann have done. Cast a glance upon the center in 
the organic chain. If a glass of water containing a polyp 
be so placed that the vessel be partly in the shade, the 
polyp will instantly move to the sunny side. The little 
creature exercises its will to abide under the influence of 
the sunbeams. Put a living infusorium into the glass 
within a few lines of the polyp and it will agitate the wa- 
ter so as to bring the infusorium to its mouth and swal- 
low it. Put a dead infusorium, or another small object, 
in the same position to the polyp, and it will not move. — 
Here is the exercise of intentional will. It is no rare in- 
stance that two polyps fight over an infusorium, or that 
an Australian ant cut in two, the two halves of the same 
body will fight one another to death or exhaustion. Here 
is will under the impulse of an affect, will without brain, 
ganglia, or nerves. As you rise in the scale of organism 
the manifestation of will becomes so much more percept- 
ible to the cursory observer. The dog wills to follow 
its master. The horse wills, or wills not, to perform its 
task. The mule is stubborn; the lamb is gentle; the lion, 
like the cat, patiently watches its prey and an opportu- 
nity to seize it. It is will in all these instances, percept- 
ible to the naked eye. 




130 THE COSMIC GOD. 

Will, outside of the purely human will, points directly 
to the existence of the following conditions. There must 
be in the animal a natural necessity to be gratified, and 
this necessity must produce a corresponding desire. This 
desire is called instinct. Then the object outside the ani- 
mal and within its limits of perception, calculated to grat- 
ify that desire, by an instinctive impulse, agitates and in- 
tensifies the desire to an actual voilition. So the will is 
moved and volition produced by an inward impulse and 
an outward motive. It combines the efficient and final 
causes, is at the same time subjective and objective, viz: 
in its origin and object. The volition must always have, 
in view an object, to be reached by adequate means or 
exertions. While desire and impulse rousing the will to 
volition, are purely instinctive, the volition employing 
means to reach a given end, must be intellectual. 

Will in every instance of volition can be intel- 
lectual only, so that none can possibly think of will 
or volition without an intellectual process. Therefore will 
and intellect, as also Hartman maintains, are inseparably 
united. 

Illustrate so: The dog is hungry, feels the natural de- 
sire for food. A piece of meat, which he sees or smells, 
gives him the impulse to gratify his desire by this par- 
ticular piece of meat. Here the instinct stops. He wiils 
that piece of meat, i. e., he employs the adequate means 
to overcome all obstacles and reach his aim. Suppose a 
person be in the room whom the dog fears, he waits for 
that person's departure, and as soon as this has taken 
place, the dog snatches the meat and carries it to a quiet 
corner. This is certainly an intellectual process. In any 
and every case of animal actualization of will in volition, 
the same process exactly takes place; for means must be 
chosen, adapted to an end; a purpose is to be realized. Al- 
though not every volition is realized, and the means em- 
ployed are not adequate in every instance, still the intel- 
lectual process is always the same, as the means must be 
present to the animal before the volition is executed. 

Without entering here again upon the difference of hu- 
man and animal will and intellect, we are entitled to the 
conclusion that there is will and intellect wherever there 
is life. Keflex motions, falsely called reflex will, being 
involuntary motions of the muscles caused by external 
irritations, are no acts of will. They are mechanical and 
find their cause in the peculiar construction of the mus- 
cle; but every other motion is certainly the demonstra- 
tion of will and intellect. 



WILL AND INTELLECT IN NATURE. 131 

It must be added that the animal's natural desires, ap- 
petites, etc., called instincts, are the resultants of muscu- 
lar motion, contraction, and expansion, purely mechanical 
and beyond the control of animal will or intellect. — 
Those mechanical processes which we call instincts are 
the works of apparatuses teleologically constructed to sus- 
tain the animal and the race, without the continual co- 
operation of which the animal can not live. These in- 
voluntary actions of the body, as the actions of the heart, 
stomach, and intestines, which act as levers to the will 
and intellect, are all minutely regular, systematical and 
teleological. Being the causes of the instincts, they also 
are regular, systematical, and teleological. Therefore the 
instincts are fundamental principles of teleological cen- 
ters. All of them, although beyond the control of the an- 
imal, nevertheless harmoniously co-operate to work out 
one final cause, viz.: the existence of the individual and 
its race. ~No animal can have a superfluous instinct, nor 
can it have one less than necessary to its purposes, as the 
instincts spring from the involuntary muscular action. — 
So the mechanical and involuntary actions of animal and 
vegetable and the resultant instincts show distinctly 
«nd, aim, purpose, and design, and consequently will and 
intellect in nature outside not only of man, but of both 
organic kingdoms. Therefore Kant maintained that the 
instincts are revelations of Diety. 

Are will and intellect substances, or are they accidents 
attributes or functions of a substance? The foolish idea 
that life, will and intellect are accidents of the organism, 
has been refuted already, for we have proved before the 
existence of vital force, and have shown already that the 
organism is the resultant of will and intellect; it is a tel- 
eological center. Nothing can be resultant of itself. Be- 
sides we know will and intellect exist in the invertebrate 
animals down to polyp, and by the demonstration offree- 
dem we discovered them also in the vegetable kingdom; 
hence they are independent of nerves, ganglia, brain, and 
every particular arrangement in any organism. 

We know that will and intellect exist and manifest 
themselves wherever life exists, as we know that light 
and heat, positive and negative electricity are in constant 
connection. Life itself is known to us as a psychical sub- 
stance, called vital force. Hence will and intellect are 
either in constant unison with life as independent agen- 
cies, or they are the attributes of life, or vice versa. 

Again we know that a substance not always manifests 
all its attributes simultaneously. For instance, heat con- 



132 THE COSMIC GOD. 

sumes, expands, and is the cause of the flame; yet, under 
certain conditions, heat manifests not its burning and 
flaming properties, and under other conditions, its ex- 
panding property remains latent. So we know that un- 
der certain conditions, like sleep, disease, idiocy, somnam- 
ulism, etc., life appears without will and intellect at that 
particular time and space, consequently we are entitled 
to the conclusion that will and intellect are attributes of 
life, i. e., vital force is the substance, will and intellect its 
attributes. Inasmuch, however, as the attribute is that,, 
to speak with Spinoza, which reason understands of the 
substance as being its essence; vital force is, besides its 
other attributes, will and intellect; or intellect is will and 
life; or will is life and intellect; the three are one substance,, 
manifesting itself in its various attributes. It is no tri- 
une substance or a trinity, as a substance can be one only, 
but these three manifestations, as appearing to the hu- 
man intelligence, are in fact only three attributes. 

We have seen in our lectures on biology that vitaL 
force is both universal and differentiated. It is univer- 
sal because a force, and differentiated in the individual 
beings. It is omnipresent in its universality, and ap- 
pears in time in its differentiation. Hence we know beyond. 
a doubt or peradventure, the existence, substantiality,, 
and universality of iife, will and intellect in this vast do- 
main of nature, in man and outside of him, in animal and. 
plant and independent of them, here and everywhere, 
now and forever; since the attributes can not be sepa- 
rated from the substance of which they are attributes,., 
as little as extension can be separated from space. Life 
being a substantial force outside of all beings, will and in- 
tellect must be. 

We consider our thesis established; hence freedom, life,, 
will and intellect in nature outside of man and all organ- 
isms; therefore, also, end, aim, purpose and design, there 
is teleology in this vast domain of the universe. 

Upon the broad highway of the natural sciences and 
under the steady guidance of induction, we have arrived 
already at the very gate of metaphysics. But we shall 
not yet enter it as long as other proofs are at our com- 
mand to overthrow the bulwarks of materialism, and to 
establish the spiritual and intellectual side of nature. — 
In our next lecture we will try another standpoint, and 
see whether it leads not to the same results precisely. 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 133 



LECTURE XVIL 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — The history of the human 
family is a continuation of the grand scheme, realized in 
the creation of this earth, and the host thereon. Crea- 
tion's closing work was man, and with the first man his- 
tory begins, to end with the last. Although we have no 
exact knowledge of its earliest details, still we know that 
the development of facts, which underlie the pyramid of 
history, begins with the doings of the first man, and not 
with the mollusks or opossums. The first human deed 
was the first stone at the base of the towering structure 
called history. 

The law of causality, the continual chain of cause and 
effect, is as clearly and intelligibly manifested in history, 
as in physical nature; not, indeed, in brain dispositions 
and improved nerves, but in deeds and facts of actualized 
mind outside of the human being. So, for instance, the 
late Franco-G-erman war was certainly not the effect of 
particular brain dispositions newly acquired, for wars 
were waged thousands of years ago; still it was the effect 
of causes, and became in its turn the cause of the French 
republic and the secularization of the Papal dominion, the 
further effects of which are now incalculable; all, however 
without any changes in brain dispositions or structure of 
the nerves. 

Those who have read Herder, Kant, Guizot, Buckel, 
and others on the philosophy of history, Hegel on the 
history of philosophy, or Steinthal's and Lazarus' essays 
and books on the Voelkeiysychologie (psychology of na- 
tions), will certainly not deny the law of causality in 
man's history; and I believe, the materialists also will ad- 
mit, there is sufficient ground to rely on those authors 
in this particular point. 



134 THE COSMIC GOD. 

Is there teleology, final cause in history? is end, aim r 
object, design, purpose and proper execution discernable 
in the history of man, or is the human family drifting 
upon the boundless ocean of existence without an}' ulti- 
mate purpose? If there is teleology in history, then the 
question arises, by which force or forces, power or powers? 
It is evident to my mind, that there is teleology in his- 
tory and by a superhuman power, and I will expound to- 
you the evidence in my possession. 

We may set down as a general principle : Every con- 
tinuous chain of cause and effect in nature is teleological. 
resulting continually in teleological centers, which every 
individual being is. What German philosophers call a 
causalnexus is also a teleological center, the final cause of" 
the complex of co-operative efficient causes, to bring forth 
this natural object, crystal or sun, protoplasm or man. — 
Their successive co operation proves the primary inten- 
tion of the process. What is true in nature must also be 
true in history. The same chain of cause and effect must 
also be teleological; and each state of society, every day, 
every hour, and at every place, must be a teleological cen- 
ter. Analogy is certainly in my favor, and logic no less.- 
For every state of society, being demonstrably the result 
of preceding efficient causes, is the ultimatum in the log- 
ical chain of legitimate conclusions, always the only log- 
ical result of all preceding links, and contained in them. 
So the very last effect at any given time, is the very aim 
and object, or final cause, of all preceding causes and ef- 
fects, down to the primary cause, and must be contained, 
therein potentially and intentionally, because logical in- 
each and all. This is certainly premeditated teleology in 
the strictest sense of the term. Each state of society, in 
its turn, becomes again the cause of the succeeding one, 
and so on to the supposed end of history; hence the whole 
chain is logical and teleological. 

Let us suppose, we see two piles of square stones on op- 
posite sides of a street. We imagine some purpose or an- 
other, although not the correct one. Artizans take apart 
the square stones on one side of the street and erect a goth- 
ic cathedral with its ornamented doors, windows, stee- 
ples, and emblems. On the other side, other artizans take 
apart the other stone pile, and erect from the well-meas- 
ured square stones a Byzantine temple with its doors, win- 
dows, pillars, arabesques, and minarets. Now we are able 
to tell that in two seemingly equal piles of stones, there 
were actually two complete designs of two different struc- 
tures. Having this point we run back through every 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 135 

step of the previous proceedings to the first men who met 
and schemed the erection of these buildings, a perfect 
chain of cause and effect with its teleological center now 
visible in the two buildings, although the very buildings 
must have been present potentially all along in every step 
taken, and every piece of work done. Then we calculate 
the influence to be exercised from those buildings on the 
human family, which leads us not only onward but also 
backward to causes, which produced in the Christian the 
taste for the Gothic style and in the Jew a predeliction 
for the Oriental style of architecture; and how the ideas 
connected with this point reached our generation and will 
influence coming ones, all in a logical chain of cause and 
effect. 

Take another point to illustrate: Here I stand before 
you to exercise the privilege of free thought and free 
speech. We call this a final cause, a teleological center of 
importance in history. This privilege is a resultant of 
preceding active causes. The Hebrew polity had to pass 
through a series of reforms made possible by the advan- 
ced spirit of the age, which is again a resultant of other 
and ever as many causes, while the freedom of speech and 
thought is the offspring of the American revolution. This 
again is the child of previous causes, among them the 
stamp act, duty on tea, the conduet of George III, and his 
advisers, the situation and the disposition of the colonists. 
the bravery and patriotism of George Washington and 
his compatriots; none of these causes could be omitted and 
the same end be reached. All this, however, depends 
again on previous conditions of the pioneers in Europe, 
and the discovery of America. Go back a little further, 
America could not have been discovered, if there had not 
risen, in the fifteenth century, a nameless and aimless 
passion among maritime nations for discoveries. The 
passion would not have taken hold upon intelligent men, 
if the sciences, especially mathematics and astronomy, had 
not been previously improved, and together with the as- 
trolab applied to navigation. These improvements were 
caused by floors and Jews. It is all one chain of cause and 
effect, and the last effect, as now my speaking to you, must 
have been contained potentially in the very first cause and 
in every following effect, which in its turn again became a 
cause; and every state of society between the two ends, at 
every time and locality, was a final cause, a teleological 
center. As little, indeed, as the artizans could have 
erected the two different buildings from the two piles of 
stone, if the previous and efficient causes had not been 



136 THE COSMIC GOD. 

embodied therein, intentionally and premeditated; so lit- 
tle could I now speak before you here, as I do if those 
numerous efficient causes had not preceded this final cause, 
or if it had not been contained in all its efficient causes. 
It is a causalnexus, therefore it is teleological center. 

Therefore, in our day, no philosophical historiographer 
writes history otherwise than on the teleological principle, 
which the G-ermans call pragmatisch; because history as 
a chaos of disconnected events like bubbles on the sur- 
face of a boiling ocean of chance and casualty, always 
bursting to give way to new bubbles, is as unintelligible 
as indifferentiated matter in its zero state with no forces 
moving and shaping it. The great object of the student 
of history is to know the facts correctly and in their tel- 
eological connection with the whole structure of history. 

Well then, if history is teleological, and its progress de- 
pends not on brain dispositions and improved nerves by 
descendency, then it is actualized mind, human, extra- 
human, or both. 

It has been affirmed in a previous lecture, that history 
contains the monuments of actualized human mind. Al- 
though man is not absolutely free, as he is no absolute 
being, still he is free to a certain extent, as we know both 
empirically and a priori. Every being in nature is free, 
as long as it exists in harmony with its inherent laws and 
without disturbance from abroad. Every organic being, 
we have seen, manifests will, intellect and freedom. With 
his will, intellect, and freedom, there can be no doubt, 
man makes history, i. e., he seizes, in every generation and 
clime, the opportunities and advantages before him, adds 
to them his experiences and inventions for the use and 
benefit of himself, his fellow -man, and posterity. It is 
man's exclusive privilege to make history, because he 
and he only connects in his mind past, present and fu- 
ture; only he feels the necessity of improving, because he 
alone is idealistic; and the desire of benefiting others liv- 
ing with or after him, because he alone is a moral being. 
His selfishness can not overcome entirely his ideality and 
moral nature, and the social structure is so, that the hap- 
piness of the individual, to a great extent, depends on the 
well-being of society. All this is certainly true in gen- 
eral, although the rule is subject to numerous exceptions. 

But having admitted already the law of causality, it 
must also be admitted that man can not make history by 
his will and intellect exclusively; he must be in harmony 
with that law which is superior to man's will and 
intellect, as the whole is superior to any of its parts. The 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 137 

"human family consists of individuals, and not of an in- 
differentiated or consolidated body; hence mankind is sub- 
ject to that law, as well as every individual, with the free- 
dom of regarding or disregarding that law. Therefore, 
in the whole course of history, as in the whole process of 
nature, there is universal necessity and individual free- 
dom. If thousands, or nations rebel against the law, they 
must stand the consequences; but other thousands and 
other nations will obey it and reap its benefits. The, mys- 
tery of successful statesmanship and prophecy is honesty 
of purpose, a thorough knowledge and appreciation of this 
Jaw. This law of causality in history is certainly extra- 
human. Organic nature offers the following analogy: 

Every egg of every fish, and every seed of every plant, 
possesses the inherent will to become an organic being of 
its own kind, and must become one, if left to its inherent 
Jaw and will. But there is an extra-organic law which, 
as it regulates the equal proportion of male and female 
births, or the increased birth of sound and strong male 
children after wars and epidemics, or the regular pro- 
gression of births and deaths in the various generations, 
also regulates the proportional increase of fish and plant 
of each kind in the natural state, that there exist so ma- 
ny, no more and no less, at any given time and locality. 
The numerous eggs and seeds are necessary to reach that 
end surely, all destructive agencies otherwise necessary 
taken into consideration. Without the will of the fish- 
egg there can be no fish, nor can there be one contrary to 
that extraorganic law. So man's will, though free, is sub- 
ject to that extra-human will of causality, as far as his- 
tory is concerned. Let us call this law the Logos of His- 
tory, and ascertain its general principles. 

There is perpetual progression in history from lower to 
higher conditions, exactly as in this earth's creation.— 
'There are breaks, violent catastrophes and eruptions in 
the earth's crust, and there are also in history apparently 
illogical, bloody, and disturbing eruptions, cessations and 
retrogressions, momentarily and locally; but in the to- 
tality of history, the progression from lower to higher 
■conditions is perpetual, incessant, and logical. Yet hu- 
man nature is the same forever in all its fundamental 
qualities. Our modern Anglo-Franco-German thinkers 
-certainly stand no higher in the scale of intelligence than 
*the Hebrew prophets of old. Our reasoning powers sur- 
pass not the men of ancient Greece or Eome. The ideals 
of art are no loftier now than they were in classical ages. 
'Not in quality, but in quantity, of experience and inven- 



138 THE COSMIC GOD. 

tions, utilized, generalized, and popularized, the progress- 
ion of history is manifested. The child now is precisely 
the same as were those born when the Egpptian pyra- 
mids were erected. Now it sees, hears, and learns more 
than it could then; the material increased and spread, the 
methods and facilities of instruction have been improved. 
Take twin brothers to-day, place one in a metropolis and 
the other in a solitary farm house, and you will see at 
once the whole difference. 

Mankind not progressive in quality, and still the pro- 
gression in history steady, the principle of progression 
must be extra human, and the first general principle of 
the Logos of History must be: It preserves, utilizes, and 
promulgates all that is good, true and useful, and neu- 
tralizes all that is wicked, false and useless or nugatory;, 
exactly as the extra-organic will and intellect works in 
the organic kingdoms. Let us cast a glance upon history. 

Pharaoh and the Egyptians oppressed and enslaved the 
Hebrews, who possessed traditionally certain ethical 
truths. The consequence is the departure from Egypt, 
the legislation in the wilderness, the establishment of a 
new civilization in Canaan, the rise of the prophets, the 
promulgation of monotheism and its ethics, powerful le- 
vers in the world's civilzation. The Egyptians opposed 
all this; the Hebrews were against it, the Logos of His- 
tory preserved and prompted, shaped and directed, and 
Moses had a perfect right to say God had sent him. 

Alexander crossed the Hellespont to subjugate Asia to 
the, Macedonian scepter, and died in Babylon a young man; 
his whole family vanish; Western Asia is the heir of Gre- 
cian literature and science, a new civilization springs up, 
and Egypt under her Ptolemeys becomes again the cen- 
ter of culture, to give rise to a new phase in the world's, 
history, which neither Greek nor Barbarian designed or 
wanted, and the Logos of History turns evil into good to 
preserve, and to progress. 

A mad king of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, in need of 
much money and good sense, determines upon apostatis- 
ing the few millions of Jews in Palestine. The rebellion 
follows, ends with an independent government under tho 
Maccabean princes; and decides forever the superiority of 
the Hebrew monotheism and ethics over Greco-Eoman 
speculation and mythology. Pompey and his host med- 
dle into the affairs of the Jews, two centuries of incessant 
combat ensue, which brings the Jews into Italy, Spain, 
France, Germany, and also to the East, and with them 
comes the death of Heathenism in Europe, Arabia, and 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 13$ 

Persia. Home subjects Jerusalem and loses her gods. — 
Every step in the process is extra-human, although all 
done by men. 

But we need not go back so far; the illustration is right 
before us. If the queen of Spain in 1492 could have 
guessed the consequences of the voyage by Columbus, 
that he would discover a new world, where the coffin 
should be made for all crowns and scepters, America 
would not have been discovered. If the clergy of those 
days had supposed that this would be the land of relig- 
ious liberty, free thought and free speech, ho human be- 
ing would have been permitted to leave Europe and seek 
these shores. They can not accuse any man or any body 
of men in particular to have been guilty of making this 
new world a new starting point in history, to revolution- 
ize all former conceptions of public government, social and 
political rights and privileges, classes and divisions; to 
change the entire status of labor and the laboring man by 
new conceptions and inventions. It is all one chain of 
teleological events, conducted by the Logos of History, to 
find its conceivable final cause in the universal and dem- 
ocratic republic. 

Take another side of the picture. If Pius IX., had 
known in 1848 that his siding with the so-called legiti- 
mate princes, the despots of Europe and their tools, when 
the spirit of revolution like a hurricane swept over the 
continent, would cost him his temporal power only a quar- 
ter of a century thereafter, and could have convinced him- 
self that the two dogmas of immaculate conception and 
infallibility, and the forcible acquisition of the boy Mor- 
tara for the Church, would estrange so many hearts from 
the Church and embitter so many thousands against her 
dominion, — no kaiser and no Bismarck, no Victor Eman- 
uel and no Garibaldi, could have dethroned him, united 
Italy, or broken down the power of the Jesuits. 

Again, if the then three kaisers of Europe could have 
thought that the late German-French war would build up 
the French republic, which if granted two decades of 
peace will necessarily republicanize Europe to the very 
gates of Constantinople and St. Petersburg, — the war 
would not have been waged, and a Napoleon would still 
play comedy in France. You see, no Bismarck, no kaiser, 
no Pope, nor any body else, has brought about those re- 
fnarkable changes in history which transpired in our very 
days and under our eyes, as it were. It is all extra-human; 
it is the Logos of History that rights the wrongs, turns 
the course of events in favor of progression in spite of all 
the wickedness of rulers or nations, preserves the ele- 



140 THE COSMIC GOD. 

inents of truth, goodness, and usefulness, to be shaped in 
new events, and neutralizes falsehoods, wickedness, all 
that is useless or nugatory. 

So in all ages of history large masses were blindly 
moved by an invisible power, to achieve worthless pur- 
poses in barbarous and bloody wars and rebellions; but 
the Logos of History always utilized the human blood and 
misery for the cause of progression. Great men, like 
King Saul, were troubled with evil spirits, committed un- 
pardonable follies and barbarous outrages; the Logos of 
History sends those actors to oblivion, renders their work 
harmless, and turns it round for the benefit of progress- 
ive humanity. Mephistopheles himself, who always wills 
the bad, must serve good purposes. In the grand drama 
of history there is no evil; and also in^this particular point 
history is identical with the great household of nature. 
There is no devil. 

But it is time for me to close. I can not finish my sub- 
ject in one lecture. I propose to complete it in my next. 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 141 



LECTURE XVIII. 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY 
CONCLUDED. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — The Logos of History mani- 
fests its extra-human existence also in the inevitable pun- 
ishment of national sins. As nature, everywhere and in- 
exorably, punishes every transgression against the physi- 
cal laws, so the Logos of History dispenses just retribu- 
tion for national misdeeds. The words of Isaiah might be 
written upon every public building: "If ye be willing and 
obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land, but if ye re- 
fuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

From the distant Orient, the terrible goddess whose 
name is Nemesis, came to the Greeks who worshiped her 
with awe; and the Eomans erected her a temple in th& 
capitol among the superior gods. What Isaiah expressed 
in intelligible words, mythology represented by the sym- 
bolic goddess; the principle of retribution and retaliation,, 
enforced by an invisible power, is the foundation of both 
and deeply seated in the consciousness of all nations and 
tribes. The Pagan Jethro said to Moses: "Now I know 
that Jehovah is greater than all the gods; for the very 
thing which they used wickedly came upon them," (the 
Egyptians, as a retribution.) 

It is not as clearly manifested in the life of the individ- 
ual, and may not be enforced as rigidly; but nations, his- 
tory and consciousness agree, live, grow, and nourish on 
their virtues; suffer, decline, or perish of their vices, and 
all that by agencies perfectly natural, though controlled 
by super-human causes. 

The Bible and the history of Israel are full not only of 
the most.terrible warnings to this effect, but also of tell- 
ing facts in corroboration of this doctrine. The student 
of ancient history knows full well, how mighty empires 
forced together by the sword, established in blood, and 



142 THE COSMIC GOD. 

held under the subjection of terror, were crushed under 
their own terrible weight, by an invisible power mightier 
then despots, heroes and armies. Awe inspiring ruins of 
impregnable castles, proud, wealthy, and populous mctrop- 
oles tell the tale of Nemesis' inexorable execution. Be- 
gotten in bloody wrongs, fed by injustice, and nourished 
with human blood and tears, they fell fat victims of ra- 
ging vices. So ended Assyria, Babylonia, and Medo-Per- 
.sia; so perished the Roman Empire, and in the beginning 
-of this century also its successor, the Germanic empire. 

Look for a moment at old Germany with her outrageous 
crimes, committed for centuries on burgher, peasant, Jew, 
bondsman, and foreigner, all of whom were mere sheep, 
<;heap commodities, marching chatties, worthless trinkets, 
superfluous dregs, filling space for tbe special benefit of 
so-called noble-men, priests, soldiers, and their task-mas- 
ters called public officers and executioners; committed al- 
so on Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and other 
.Sclavonic countries trampled down by German armies. — 
Look upon her history and you will find, how her sons 
were slain by the millions, first in the internal feuds of 
Jsnightly ruffians, and in the various, bloody crusades, 
then in Italy, Turkey, Spain, ^France, and the Nether- 
lands, next in Fratricidal rebellions, the Thirty and Seven 
years wars; so that she was at no time without war, till 
at the beginning of this century she fell down dead at the 
feet of Napoleon and France, dead from crime and ex- 
haustion, and there laid for nearly seventy years a help- 
less giant, a byword among nations, trampeled upon by a 
thousand petulant despots, ridiculed and despised by Met- 
ternich and Nesselrode first, by Napoleon and Cavour 
then. Strange analogy! Like the Hebrews of old, Ger- 
many had her seventy years captivity, to expiate her na- 
tional sins, and to send forth into the world her sons, 
bearers of ideas shipwrecked at home, under the blind 
captaincy of mad despots. 

Next in crime and retribution, among the modern 
nations, is certainly France which, since the closing de- 
cade of the last century has been expiating her enormous 
sins by currents of blood. And next to her, only in crime 
more atrocious and in vice more hideous, is awful Spain, 
whose sins are as old as her history, and as grievious as 
those of Sodom and Gomorrah. Every inch of her soil is 
drenched with innocent blood, and her atmosphere is ripe 
with the sighs and groans of human beings who expired 
under diabolic tortures. In the Netherlands and the 
West Indies, in Mexico, and Peru, in Naples and Sicily, 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 143 

she has insatiably swallowed human gore and destroyed 
human happiness. Behold-now, how she wades and swims 
in her own blood, ho^\ her sons exterminate one another, 
and yet there is no peace to the wicked. So the Logos of 
History avenges the outrages committed by nations and, 
although long suffering, surely visits the iniquities of pa- 
rents on children and children's children to the third and 
fourth generation of those who abide in wickedness. 

But we need not go so far to conceive evident manifes- 
tations of the Logos of History punishing national sins. 
Up to the year 1840 the people of these United States liv- 
ed on the virtues and wisdom of its sires. Then it began 
to grow fat and to kick. Its first crime was going to war 
with Mexico. War is always a crime, for one party must 
be in the wrong, most usually both are. The principle of 
settling difficulties by war is in itself a crime. War of 
conquest is a barbarous crime on humanity, every life 
■sacrificed is willful and malicious murder on the record of 
a nation. War of a republic against a sister republic is 
the extreme of all national crimes. And yet the United 
States waged war upon the Eepublic of Mexico, which 
ended with the annexation of California and New Mexico. 

Please, look upon the consequences. Gold, plenty of 
gold and silver were found in the annexed territory, more 
than in all central Europe; but we have a depreciated pa- 
per currency, and the precious metal disappears myste- 
riously under our hands. We owe more money in Eu- 
rope than any nation ever did outside of its boundaries. 
We are the richest and poorest people in the world. We 
have plenty of the precious metals, but for the last fifteen 
years none for our own use; and the interest we pay to 
foreign purses consumes thefatof the landand makes the 
heaviest tribute ever paid by any vanquished nation. Be- 
fore we had all that precious metal, we had a few less 
millionaires in this country, but many, many less pover- 
ty stricken persons and beggars, less corruption, and less 
crime in proportion. The increase of the precious met- 
als, however vast and out of all proportion, has done us 
no good. It is ill-gotten wealth. It is the fruit of a nation- 
al crime. The Logos of History avenges the wrong, and 
threatens to sacrifice the liberties of this people to a few 
millionaires and avaricious hirelings. 

Yes, Mexico was conquered and we triumphed. But 
the infatuation was still on our brains, when lo, the threat- 
ening demon of dissension with its flaming torch, in the 
year 1849, set the whole country on fire which burnt on 
and on until the conflagration of the great rebellion threat- 



144 TIIE COSMIC GOD. 

ened to consume the whole land. Over the acquired 
territory, the admission of California into the Union, the 
dissension broke out, the balance of power among the 
States was thus disturbed, and the quarrel ceased no more. 
Now loomed up the old sin, slavery, and together with 
the new one filled the measure of iniquity to the brim; 
the Logos of History appeared as the Nemesis of retribu- 
tion, and behold the ten thousands of victims, to exipate 
for our national crimes. 

How wonderful, how marvelous! While we expiated 
our sins by our blood, the French invaded Mexico to 
strangle the republic (this was the beginning of Napo- 
leons end and Bazaine's shame); and we were offered the 
opportunity of making atonement to Mexico. William H. 
Seward, who manceuvered three emperors out of this con- 
tinent, did make that atonement, and assisted in the res- 
toration of the Mexican republic. So that debt was can- 
celed. But among us at home the offended Logos of His- 
tory is not appeased yet. Corruption in high places, an 
insatiable avarice among public men, public robbery in 
all shapes and forms, the dominion of ignorant masses 
over the intelligent in many States, the consequent op- 
pression and military dictation, financial ruination and 
despondency in private circles, the heaviest burdens of 
taxes ever paid by a people, are only a few of the con- 
sequences under which we groan now. But I need not 
produce any more to convince impartial men how, before 
and under our very eyes, the Logos of History manifests 
its extra-human existence and activity by the inevitable 
punishment of national sins. True, the means are all hu- 
man, all natural as cause and effect; but the first cause 
which employs those means to reach these ends, and 
shapes all teleologically to produce these final causes, is. 
certainly extra-human. 

The sure punishment of national sins can not be denied,, 
as history and the consciousness of man speak too londly 
thereof. No nation inflicts wilfully a punishment upon 
itself, and yet it comes. It comes without any man's de- 
sign or intention. It comes by a teleological arrange- 
ment of events of particular fitness. Therefore it must 
come from the extra-human Logos of History, which as- 
far as nations are concerned, is certainly sovereign and 
immutable justice. 

"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht" — In the world's 
history is the world's judgment day. 

The next phenomenon in which the Logos of History 
manifests itself is most extraordinary; its name is Genius.. 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 145 

The existence of genius and its appearance at the right 
place and time is as mysterious as the center of the uni- 
verse. Genius is the superior spontaneity of the mind in 
productive and executive powers. It conceives, not by 
an act of volition or tiresome reflection, but freely, gen- 
erously, and unsolicited; it conceives finished and com- 
plete thoughts, schemes, designs or images of universal 
truth, irresistible impulses to execute or realize, utter and 
promulgate. All this comes like a flash of lightning, un- 
awares and not expected, in words, symbols, visions, or 
finished thoughts. The ancient Hebrews called it Buach 
hak-kodesh, "a holy spirit," and modern language names 
it Genius. 

Talent is not genius. Talent discovers, and genius in- 
vents. Talent thoughtfully connects, combines, and 
unites; the work of genius springs forth from the mind in 
one solid cast, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, 
complete and harmonious. Talent trims its productions 
for the public mart, and modifies them to suit its customers; 
it depends on outward circumstances. Genius is inconsid- 
erate, self-relying, and, like unconscious beauty, without 
any intention to please. Talent wills, and genius must: 
it is an internal necessity. Talent is local, genius univer- 
sal. Talents are acquired, and genius is inborn. The 
ancient Hebrews looked upon the men of genius as spec- 
ial messengers from on high; therefore the Psalmist sings: 
"Ye shall not touch my Messiahs, not mal -treat my pro- 
phets," which is recast in the New Testament thus; "A sin 
against the holy ghost will not be forgiven." (with spec- 
ial reference to Deut., xviii. 18, 19.) 

Wherever genius is placed it manifests itself by break- 
ing through the crystalized forms, and pouring forth new 
creations of the mind, and is therefore, the cause of all 
progressions in history. It is the same genius under all 
circumstances, although its peculiar manifestations al- 
ways depend on outer circumstances. It is the same gen- 
ius, whether among peasants or mechanics, students or 
poets, painters, sculptors or architects, in the army, in 
the legislature or executive council of a nation, in a school- 
master's chair or a composer's study. Its peculiar mani- 
festations only depend on outward circumstances to throw 
it upon this or that department of human activity; but it 
will show every where its inventive force and the univer- 
sality of its character. It is the highest differentiation of 
the vital force. The same genius which became a proph- 
et in Israel, because the nation's general turn of mind was 
religious ethical, might have become an apostle of the fine 
10 



146 THE COSMIC GOD.' 

arts, or formal philosophy in Greece, or become a great 
statesman or soldier in Eome, a prominent legislator in 
England, or a successful inventor in this country; simply by 
the change of external elements giving direction to gen 
ius, which remains the same genius under all influences, 
Genius is not inherited. All the great geniuses whose 
names history gratefully recorded, stood alone, without a 
duplicate in their respective genealogies. We know next 
to nothing^of the ancestors or descendents of Moses, Isaiah, 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer JEschylus, Sophocles, 
Shakspeare, Raphael, Correggio, Mozart, Beethoven, or 
Hirshel and Frauenhof. The son of Solomon was a fool, 
and the son of Schiller is a rough hunter. Spinoza, Leib- 
nitz, Newton, Kant, and George Washington died child- 
less. Dante, Tasso, Milton, Eacine, Lessing, and Goethe 
left no scion like them; Caesar, Napoleon, like Cyrus and 
Alexander, left no heir of genius behind. Geniusis a spec- 
ial commission from the Logos of History to advance the 
human family to higher conditions of existence. 

Most every genius works against his own will and in- 
terests; ninety-nine out of each hundred are unhappy and 
dissatisfied — many miserable, wretched. They feel keen- 
er, love profounder, know better, hope and scheme loft- 
ier, expect more, are disappointed and mortified more fre- 
quently, find less pleasure in carnal enjoyments than the 
generality of people. In consequence of their creative 
powers they are always at war with existing and stereo- 
typed forms and institutions, consequently in perpetual 
conflict with the conservative element and selfish motives. 
But there is in genius that irresistible force; it must — it 
must pour out the truth conceived, the beauty felt, the 
goodness admired, careless of all consequences. There- 
fore the ten thousand martyrs in all departments of men- 
tal and moral creations whose places in history, marked 
red with blood and tears, are awfully sublime. 

And yet if it were not for the large conservative ele- 
ment, there could be no order, no stability, at any time; 
the human family, so to say, could not digest and assimi- 
late the food offered to the public stomach. And yet, if 
it were not for those poor, visionary, and eccentric vic- 
tims, those dreaming idealists, the men of genius, press- 
ing onward and forward, society would stagnate, congeal, 
crystalize or petrify; progress would be impossible and 
civilization a farce on the African pattern. Genius is the 
leaven in the chaos of humanity, the mighty lever to roll 
on the inert, plump, and helpless ball. 

And yet genius is wanting nowhere, when needed.- 



SUPERHUMAN WILL AND INTELLECT IN HISTORY. 147 

Every great time begets its great men, every great cause 
its inspired apostles. They rise, as it were, from the at- 
mosphere of the generation which requires their energies. 
When the oppression of the Hebrews in Egypt had reach- 
ed an intolerable degree, Moses was a man already, prepar- 
ed to redeem them. In a wonderful manner, none can 
account for it, the 18th century brought forth a mighty 
phalanx of brilliant geniuses, warriors, statesmen, poets, 
authors, composers, philosophers, scientists, and an un- 
conscious passion for freedom and progression seized up- 
on multitudes, to open widely the flood-gates of intelli- 
gence, to pour in its currents upon the 19th century, the 
age of radical revolution, where the lowest rapidly be- 
comes the highest, and the highest sinks down lowest, to 
rejuvenate the human family. 

And now reason comes in and asks, by whom is this 
marvelous and harmonious arrangement made? In the 
case of genius, we have evidently before us the same uni- 
versal law which governs the organic world. Plenty of 
geniuses are perpetually born, and all are at work some- 
how and somewhere, so that, all destructive agencies oth- 
erwise necessary taken into consideration, there must ap- 
pear the right man in tbe right place, where the Logos 
of History wants him, to shine forth in his pristine glory, 
and do the pre-ordained work. The other men of genius, 
like the superfluous fish-egg, also perform a task; it takes 
many hands to build a city. Here we have before us an 
extra-human agency. 

The law of history is progressive, and man not only re- 
mains in quality always the same, out the vast majority 
is conservative and opposed to every progressive step. — 
Yet history preserves ail that is good, true, and useful, 
continually increases its stock, spreads, utilizes &nd pro- 
mulgates it, contrary to the will of the masses, and in 
spite of all egotism and prevailing stupidity. Again in 
spite of all, whatever i3 false, erroneous, wicked, nugatory, 
or useless is overcome in history, by the very errors and 
blunders of great men and great nations; by the indomit- 
able and irresistable Nemesis *with all her mysterious fu- 
ries, making war upon all corruption and degradation, 
and hurling continually the nugatory element and its 
creatures into oblivion. In spite, I repeat, in spite of all 
conservatism and egotism, genius rises always and every- 
where, to be on hand at the proper time and place, to be- 
get the grand wealth of new truths, to press onward and 
forward the inert bulk of humanity, tears or smiles, love 
or hatred, lakes of blood or streams of milk and honey, 



148 THE COSMIC GOD. 

triumph or defeat, praise or scorn, crowns or gallows, it 
matters not to genius, it sacrifices itself against its own 
will, that then from its very blood, armed and buckled/ 
champions of the new ideas rise, to grasp the banner trod- 
den in the dust, and unfurl it again for victory and pro- 
gression; but onward, always onward is the watchword. 

And yet no man schemes it, none does it with forethought 
and conscious design, it is all contrary to human will and 
prediction, still done by human agency. Who designs 
this grand and marvelous drama of history, chaoses the 
actors, shifts the scenes and conducts its execution, if man- 
does not do, not will, not contemplate it? There is but 
one answer to which reason is necessitated; and this is 
the Logos of History does it in its invisible, silent and ev- 
er efficient power, and this Logos of History is not oniy 
extra-human, it is super -human, becauses it designs 
shapes, and puts into execution the destinies of all men 
and all generations, it presides over man, and all must- 
submit to its laws. 

And now human reason turns upon gross materialism 
and says: "Here is teleology in history, to deny it is mad- 
ness. Here is end, aim, design, purpose, and proper ex- 
ecution, not by one or all men, but independent of all. — 
There must be will and intellect extra-human, superhu- 
man, universal and bound to no organism. It is identi- 
cal in its laws with the extra -organic will and intellect 
in nature, hence both, are one and the same spiritual 
force. All your construction of atoms and atomic forces- 
will positively not account for the existence of one sen - 
sation, much less for the grand drama of history; and the 
last resort, after all, is the existence of an extra-mundane 
spirit, as far as matter is concerned, which is no more un- 
knowable than force or matter. Whether this super- 
human life, freedom, will, intellect, and justice, universal 
and differentiated is a mere force, or the force of all for- 
ces; whether we are entitled to call it Nature's God, we 
will investigate in our next lecture, on metaphysics. 



ON METAPHYSICS. 149 



LECTURE XIX. 



ON METAPHYSICS. — I. GOD IN NATURE. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — In eighteen lectures previous 
to this we have been guided through the labyrinth of 
nature and history by induction solely and exclusively. 
We have examined facts and attempted to expound them 
■within the bounds of the law of causality. The result of 
this investigation was unraveled to our cognition, wheels 
within wheels in the marvelous mechanism of nature and 
history; facts which stand behind this world of sensual 
realities as their efficient and final causes. The main 
fruit of our researches is the existence and substantiality 
of a force in nature which is life, freedom, will, and in- 
tellect, and also government and justice in man's history, 
universal and super-human. Is the force the first cause 
of nature, the causa sua? Imagine it as Kant's intelligible 
world, Hegel's absolute idea, Schopenhauer's will, Hart- 
niann's unconscious will and intellect, Volkert's panlo- 
gism, Yenetianer's panpsychism, or Mr. Tyndal's " un. 
knowable," after all various constructions of the same 
substance; is it the first cause? Is it the unconditioned 
(Das Unbedingte) and conditioning (Das Bedingende), of 
which all objects of nature are the conditioned (Das Be- 
dingte)? In case this question be answered in the affirm- 
ative, the next question is, what do we and can we 
know of God, nature, man, and their relations? How 
do we explain the progression of history, the duties of 
man, and the final cause of both ? These, in my estima- 
tion, are the main questions of metaphysics, viz., the na- 
ture of the cause or causes which exist, figuratively 
spoken, behind physical nature, behind the mechanism of 
this cosmos and its parts, which are the effects thereof. 

The term metaphysics in philosophy is of accidental 
origin. The first compiler of the writings of Aristotle 
found the works of that great master mind divided in 



150 THE COSMIC GCD. 

logic, aesthetics, and physics, and piaced last of all, 
hence behind physics Aristotle's principal work, • and 
named it, therefore, metaphysics. Therefore, the province- 
and limits of metaphysics have been variously under- 
stood by the philosophers. My definition is my own. 

In metaphysics, the inductive method will not reach, ta 
ascertain all reason is capable of ascertaining. Inasmuch 
as metaphysics undertakes to lift up the veil of nature, 
and to expose to intelligence that which is behind that 
veil as the cause of causes, the inductive method will do 
well; but where it begins to expound the nature of that 
cause, which is no sensual object ; there are the limits of 
the law of causality, hence also of induction ; there the 
province and methods of pure reason begin, and nothing 
else will solve that problem of problems. There are cer- 
tainly more methods of cognition than philosophy ex- 
pound and science applies. Knowledge precedes science, 
and cognition is prior to philosophy. Mankind knows 
vastly more than science and philosophy have utilized and 
systematized. The child sucking its nutriment performs 
mechanical feats, which only after thousands of years 
science began to construct. The entire material of phil- 
osophy in all its disciplines consists after all of the spon- 
taneous productions of the mind. Philosophy discovered 
the form, it invented not the substance of its contents. 

There is room left for genius to carve out new methods 
of cognition. Do I not know it a priori? I know that 
there is a G-od, a Providence, and an immortality, and I 
know it as sure as I know anything ; yet I am not sup- 
erstitious, ignorant, or credulous ; I know all the methods 
of cognition and evidence in philosophy and science ; 
still I may fail in convincing others of the correctness of 
my convictions, simply because the methods of cogni- 
tion and evidence are not exhausted. 

The most prominent and most profound metaphysicians 
in history are the Hebrews, not only those who wrote 
the Biblical Books, but also those who wrote the apocry- 
phal, profane, and rabbinical works between 300 years be- 
fore and 300 after the Christian Era, in Palestine and Egypt; 
and those of the Moorish-Spanish period from the tenth 
to the fifteenth centuries. They furnished the whole 
material, which metaphysicians have cast, into the 
philosophical form, from Aristotle down to our days. 
Take away the Hebrew material from metaphysics, and 
what is left of it, is its formal portion, into which some 
indigestible dogmas are artificially pressed. 

And now returning to our problem, we must discuss, 



ON METAPIIYSICS. 151 

force once more. The forces co-operate in producing 
teleological centers. Whatever is a causalnexus is also a 
teieological center. Whatever object of nature we may 
examine represents a number of forces co-operating, co- 
ordinate, sub-ordinate or both. Take for instance any 
piece of common coal, and you have in it cohesion, at- 
traction, gravitation, heat and light differentiated, hence 
also electricity and magnet. These forces are in the coal, 
immanent and permanent, insulated from the body of the 
universe, and bound together to constitute that particu- 
lar object, that piece of coal. 

How do those forces meet and how keep together to 
constitute that particular object? Only one of the three 
possibilities will explain the phenomenon : .Either the 
forces bear in themselves, by affinity or attraction, the 
converging tendency and coherent nature ; or all forces 
are actually but one, differently modified by chemical 
causes ; or there is a superior and governing force, 
which unites and keeps bound together various inferior 
forces, to constitute and sustain intact any given object 
of nature. The convergence of forces is impossible, be- 
cause they are variously connected in various limited ob- 
jects, to the exclusion of any further connection with 
other fbrces or more force. If convergence was in the 
nature of all forces, they nrust unite indefinitely, so that 
there could be only one kind of objects with the same 
qualities precisely, and all matter must at last unite to 
one lump. Besides, death, decay, dissolution, or even the 
transition of qualities would be impossible on account of 
the constancy of force : so that the forces once united to 
an individual object must, by virtue of their convergence, 
remain forever intact; which we know not to be the 
case. 

if we admit the unity or correlation of forces dema- 
terialized, in their cosmic state, still this unity of forces 
exists not in their materialized state, in the objects of 
nature; for we can expel a force from a body, make it 
cosmic, and the other or others remain therein. You lay 
a piece of magnetized iron in the fire and expel the mag- 
net, while other forces remain intact in the iron. You 
stamp a rock to dust and expel its cohesion, while the 
other forces remain in the material. By heat or elec- 
tricity you reduce a solid to a liquid and a gas finally, 
and expel the force of gravitation. So nearly every 
force may be expelled, dematerialized and made cosmic, 
from any object of nature, without injury to others. 
Besides, if there was a unity of forces in matter, it could 



152 THE COSMIC GOD. 

present but one kind of quality, which we Jcnow not to 
be the case. 

Consequently only one possibility is left, viz., there is a 
superior and governing force which unites inferior forces 
in various relations and proportions, to form and to sus- 
tain intact the various objects of nature, each of which 
is a teleological center; and as soon as the influence of 
that superior force is withdrawn from any natural ob- 
ject, the remaining inferior forces, by their inherent 
tendency, strive to become again cosmic, which changes 
the respective bulk of matter in death, decay, dissolution, 
and would end with the reduction thereof to its elemen- 
tary or cosmic state, if not arrested by that superior 
force. So, and not otherwise, life and death, differentia- 
tion and ^differentiation, being and dissolution, converg 
ence and divergence in ail forms can be understood. 
Therefore no object of nature can be duplicated by hu- 
man ingenuity, simply because that superior and govern- 
ing force is not, and most likely will never be, under man's 
control. 

I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, to take particular 
notice of this point : > The natural objects themselves, 
granite or tree, diamond or beast, metal or man, pebble 
or sun, forcibly and irresistibly suggest the necessary ex- 
istence of a superior and governing force, by which each 
and all of them become, are, and return to, the cosmos. 
This superior and governing force is as evident to our 
mind as our self-consciousness, and as perceptible to our 
senses as the natural objects themselves are. What Aris- 
totle called moiyhe, the form, that something which makes 
every particular object to what it actually is, with those 
peculiar qualities which it manifests, is the superior force 
which governs all others and modifies matter and infe- 
rior forces accordingly. This is no hyj)Othesis, no theo- 
ry ; it is law, universal and undeniable. 

I beg leave, ladies and gentlemen, to remind you that 
in biology we have discovered a similar superior and 
governing force of organic kingdoms, which was called 
there vital force. Then we have ascertained that vital 
force, life, will, and intellect are in fact one substance 
with these discernable attributes. Then we have ascer- 
tained in the teleology of history that the same force is 
also the Logos of History and Justice, commonly called 
Providence. jNow we have established an analogous 
force, governing and superior, also in the inorganic king- 
doms. Also here is will as the profuse variety of the 
objects of nature demonstrate ; hence, also here is free- 



ON METAPHYSICS. 153 

tiom. Also here is intellect, as the presence of will 
proves ; and as every object of nature is in itself a teleo- 
logical center, being co-ordinate and sub-ordinate to 
the cosmos, its law, order, and harmony. Also here is a 
o-enius of inorganic nature, which combines, proportions, 
shapes, and overrules inferior forces, to bring forth and 
to sustain these objects of nature and with them also the 
cosmos. Hence either these various superior and govern- 
ing forces are identical, or we have arrived at the exis- 
tence of several Gods, one of organic and another of in- 
organic nature, one of nature and another of history. I 
say " gods," although this word is still postulated only; 
but I will prove hereafter that the term is used in its 
proper signification. 

Ancient nations understood this quite well, therefore 
their gods or genii for every class of natural objects, and 
their superior g©ds presiding over those inferior spirits, 
to account for the order and harmony in the cosmos. So 
the Kabbalistic Jews had their presiding angels, not 
only over the various elements and forces, but also over 
the special classes of natural objects, which play a con- 
siderable part in the philosophy of the Middle Ages. 
One of them was the Sechel hap-poel, the active or ener- 
getic reason, the Genius of Man and History, Metathronos 
who was Paul's pattern in shaping his Jesus. 

It had been partly shown before, that the Logos of 
History manifests the same laws precisely as the Genius 
of Inorganic Nature; therefore we called history the con- 
tinuation of the earth's creation. With man's appear- 
ance on earth, physical creation closed and mental crea- 
tion began; the pedestal was finished and the statuary 
^was plaeed upon it. Geology proves this abundantly. 

As far back as science permits us to look, we can only 
think of matter in its primary elements, isolated, with 
no force acting upon it. Whether this matter in its zero 
state was in God, outside of Him, or created by Him, is 
a question of no particular importance to us ; therefore I 
postulate, it was. Chemistry knows of elements only; 
atoms or molecules are creatures of science or imagina- 
tion ; elements only are thinkable or imaginable. These 
elements, however numerous, must have existed as par- 
allels without convergence. No force being in them, 
there was neither affinity nor attraction. The first act 
of creation of this or any other solar system, this or any 
other planet, was the compression or concussion of these 
elements. This produced heat, and in such immense 
quantity, that the facit of its calculation sounds fabulous ; 



154 THE COSMIC GOD. 

yet the collision of the elements must have produced an 
amount of heat corresponding to the mass and the force 
of concussion. Now all the elements, say of this earth, 
were one chaotic mass of burning liquid. With heat 
there came light, electricity, and motion, the unity of 
which is doubtful no longer. So first was the Tohn Wa- 
bohu, viz., the parallels of elementary matter in space. 
Then "God said let there be light and there was light/ 
i. e., there was heat, light, electricity, and motion, con- 
vertible into one another. Electricity, of course, must 
have been dynamical, now known as galvanic. Fric- 
tional and magnetic electricity could develop only after 
the mass had cooled off and metallic formations had 
ensued. 

With the compression or concussion of the primary 
elements, the force of cohesion, chemical affinity, and 
molecular attraction was also imparted to the chaotic 
liquid, developing gradually, in which there was action 
and reaction in the form of contraction and expansion. 
Contraction maybe the reaction of expansion by the 
mere contact of the fiery liquid with cold space ; or ex- 
pansion may be the reaction of contraction by the rari- 
fied and porous state of the heated liquid, and this may 
translate heat into light, electricity, and motion. At any 
rate only one force was originally imparted to the ele- 
ments, by which the creation and formation of this earth 
was effected, and from which all the other forces were 
gradually developed. Therefore in our days the corre- 
lation of forces in their cosmic state is doubted no 
longer in science. All physical forces are a unit. 

After a brief reflection, however, we discover that the 
force of compression must have preceded the force 
of expansion ; for. the very first act of creation was the 
compression or concussion of the elementary parallels. 
In fact, expansion became a force, after compression had 
united elementary matter and imbued it with force. It 
is in* the nature of force to strive perpetually to become, 
cosmic, to separate itself from the material objects, in 
which it is kept insolated by the superior and governing 
force. So it is in the nature of matter to dissolve into 
its primary elements, unless kept together by force, these 
two tendencies form the groundwork of the force of ex- 
pansion, therefore before force and matter were united, 
and the parallels of matter were compressed to a body or 
bodies, there could be no force of expansion in them; 
hence compression is the original force. Here then we 
have precisely the same force at the bottom of creation 



ON METAPHYSICS. 155 

which we have discovered as the superior and governing 
force in all objects of nature, viz., compression forming 
and preserving intact all objects of nature, of which all 
other physical forces are derivatives, consequently sub- 
ject to its control. Also planetary attraction and repul- 
sion are reactions of the force of compression, in fact 
all creations and preservation result from compression, 
but we can not enlarge here on this topic. 

One force in this earth is, all others are reactions 
thereof; and this one force was originally the impulse 
imparted to the elementary parallels of matter, by the 
substance. And so we have arrived again at one sub- 
stantial force, in the creation and preservation of all nat- 
ural objects, or if this is identical with God, at the exis- 
tence of one God. This first creative impulse is repre- 
sented in the Bible, thus : "And the spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters"; not in the water, but upon 
its surface, because it was the force of compression ; not 
God Himself moved upon the water, but His spirit, wind, 
pneuma, will, because it was an impulse imparted to tinr"~) 
elementary parallels. 

This first impulse could not have been the work of 
chance or casualty; for in all which comes within the 
cognition of man, in organic or inorganic nature, in his- 
tory, or even in imagination, there is not one phenome- 
non without a cause. In fact, the human mind is incap- 
able of thinking of a causeless effect. Causality is not a 
mere category of the human understanding; like space, 
it is a reality, inseparable from all which is, was, or will 
be. Hence the first impulse given to the elementary 
parallels must have proceeded from a cause, and all 
phenomena developing from that impulse to this moment 
must form one consecutive chain of cause and effect, 
although each object is a causalnexus. 

An impulse is an action ; an action is a function; and 
a function is in a substance only. Nothing can do 
nothing. Something only can do something. Hence the 
primary force which imparted the creative impulse to the 
elementary parallels is a substance, outside and above the 
earth and its forees, for which we have no better appel- 
lative than super-mundane. 

There can be nothing in the effect which is not also in 
its cause. The cause in this case is super-mundane, con- 
sequently psychical ; hence the forces themselves must be 
psychical, which in their action and reaction upon mat- 
ter became materialized, and dematerialized again in 
their cosmic state. So we are enabled to form a clear 



/1 56 THE COSMIC GOD. 

conception of the origin of physical forces and their 
quodity. 

We have now pressed the question onward to two 
psychical substances, one above inorganic nature and 
creation, and another above organic nature and history. 
We could well enough close here with the reasoning 
of Maimonides, Descartes, and Spinoza, that there can 
be only one psychical substance ; or, calling thie sub- 
stance force, we could at once refer to the universality 
and unity of force ; and we would have arrived already 
at the existence of one G-od. Still I have more evidence 
on hand, of which Maimonides, Descrates, and Spinoza 
made no use, and propose to produce it in my next 
lectures. , 



ON METAPHYSICS. 157 



LECTURE XX, 



ON METAPHYSICS — II. LECTURE, NATURE S GOD. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — I believe it may be set down 
as a general principle, wherever we have before us two 
or more effects, we have no right yet to postulate two sub- 
stantial causes ; for the difference of effect only points 
to a difference of functions, but by no means also to two 
substantial causes. Again the unity of the idea in any 
continuous chain of cause and effects excludes the possi- 
bility of two first causes. The material universe and the 
history of man are known to us as such a unity. 

If these propositions are true, and I do not recollect 
that they have been doubted, then we need not prove- 
the unity of the two postulated gods of our last lecture, 
viz., the G-enius of. the inorganic kingdom and creation, 
and the Logos of the organic kingdom and history. 
Any division of the first cause could be conception al 
only, never real. Every dualism, trinitarianism or poly- 
ism in the first cause is necessarily false. 

In the special question before us, the analogy of the 
different phenomena points distinctly to the identity of the- 
cause. The main force in the inorganic kingdom becomes 
phenomenal in the form of contraction and expansion. 
The contraction or compression, we have noticed as the 
continuous activity of the primary force, of the impulse 
imparted originally to inert matter. Expansion, is the 
inherent tendency of matter, to dissolve into its primary 
elements, to fall apart and become cosmic. This is not a 
force, but a negative thereof, a first, passive, and zero 
condition which produces no effect. All phenomenal 
effects are resultants of active forces, which are derivatives 
of the first impulse, the superior and governing force, 
known to us in the form of contraction or compression. 
This is self-evident to the chemist who reduces solid to* 
liquid, liquid to gas and ether, by expelling the forces 



158 THE COSMIC GOD. 

from matter, which he liberates and reduces to its primary, 
passive and zero state, as far as he can. 

The same main force, however, becomes phenomenal 
also in organic nature, only that it developes new func- 
tions. It is attraction and repulsion, positive and nega- 
tive electricity, north and south poles in the magnet, cen- 
trifugal and centripetal power, or however it becomes 
phenomenal. We observe the same fundamental action 
in the cell or even protoplasm, contraction and expansion, 
and by it accretion and secretion, internal motion and 
external limitation. This is the fundamental function 
of all organic life. Then it re-appears in animal in- 
stinct, in man's selfishness and social nature, as well as his 
struggle for personal freedom and patriotism, to be at 
the same timo an independent individual and a depen- 
dent citizen of a large, populous, and powerful com- 
munity, which is the primary cause of all history, with 
its two similar elements of conservatism and progres- 
sionism. It is always the same fundamental principle of 
contraction and expansion, only that a variety of new 
functions of the same cause become phenomenal under 
new circumstances. Hence, we have not the least ground 
for the supposition of two first causes. 

Nor, indeed, is there any reason to think of another 
first cause somewhere outside of this solar system, as we 
know the same force and matter to be universal. If 
there is anything certain in the teachings of astronomy, 
it is beyond a doubt, that light, motion and attraction 
appertain to all celestial bodies. These forces being 
derivatives of the first impulse, the superior and govern- 
ing force, hence the same first cause everywhere; although 
in the materialization of force, other derivatives may be 
active on other stars, and produce modifications of mat- 
ter unknown to us. 

Again, by the spectrum analysis and by the meteors or 
aerolites reaching our earth from different regions, we 
know that matter is matter everywhere, of the same sub- 
stance and qualities, although elements, in consequence of 
other derivative forces, may combine to different com- 
positions in different stars. The possibility of combina- 
tions of one hundred elements, and there are certainly 
rather more than less, is almost infinite ; but every com- 
bination remains the same matter subject to the same force. 
So all possible varieties and modifications of matter would 
not point to a second original cause. Therefore, there can 
be little doubt, that all celestial bodies, however different 
their atmospheres, rotations, and relations to this or any 



ON METAPHYSICS. 159 

other sun, are populated with living beings, in correspond- 
ence with those various conditions; and there like here, the 
last link in the chain must be intelligent beings akin to man. 

But aside of all these considerations, the unity of the 
first cause is proved by the teleology of creation, being, 
and history. Every stage of the earth's formation, 
e\*ery individual object of nature, and every period 
of man's history, as we have noticed before, is a teleolog- 
ical center, the end, aim, and object of a design and pur- 
pose, a logical sequence of prior causes, back to the first 
cause. In every stage of the earth's formation and every 
period of history, as in every individual object of nature, 
as a necessary part of the cosmos, there is again the 
germ and efficient cause to the next following ones, and 
so on from the first impulse imparted to the elementary 
parallels, to the present stage of the earth and period of 
history, So and not otherwise we can understand the 
continuous chain of cause and effects phenomenal in 
every causalnexus, necessarily connected with the law of 
causality. 

Therefore we are entitled at every point not only to 
the question of efficient causes, but also to the queries 
why and whereto, at every pause. Naturalists will 
never arrive at a proper understanding of nature, unless 
they search after the why and whereto at every stage of 
creation, and history, the objects of nature and their re- 
spective parts. The fact is, while one ascertains the 
efficient causes of one stage or period, he exposes the 
final causes of the prior stages or periods. Whatever is 
efficient cause in any higher stage, was final cause in the 
lower one. This is the unmistakable architecture of na- 
ture and history. Science may not succeed in this or the 
next century to ascertain in all instances all efficient and 
final causes; but it will certainly solve one problem after 
the other, and unless they are infinite, they must cer- 
tainly be solved one day or another. When the law of 
nature and history will be scientifically establisned we 
will be enabled to see the final causes, without being 
prophets, and then the final causes must unravel to us the 
mystery of the final cause. Nothing is unknowable. 

When the first impulse was imparted to the elementary 
parallels to unite and mingle by compression or concus- 
sion, this impulse was the efficient cause ; the final cause 
was the unification of the elements and the ensuing heat 
of about 2,000 degrees F., taking the medium number 
between the extremes; and this was stage No. 1. The 
liquid and radiating fire ball which, from the proper 



160 THE COSMIC GOD. 

distance, must have looked like a sun, was stage No. 2, to 
whien stage No. 1 contained the efficient cause, and of 
which it was the final cause. But this fire ball was not 
to remain in statu-quo. By the forces evolving from the 
first impulse and materializing in the fiery liquid, it 
moved around its axis and in some orbit around the sun. 
Gradually it cooled off, formed a solid nucleus and crust, 
the radiating heat earring off the various gases, formed an 
atmosphere, thick, heavy and pregnant also with the 
elements which afterwards formed the outer crust of tho 
earth, and the oce,an. When the surface of the young 
earth was cooled down to about 200 degrees F. the gasea 
attracted from the atmosphere covered the earth, all, or 
nearly so, with water of a peculiar thickness; and yet 
there was a division, an expansion, a firmament, between, 
the water on the earth and that above it still suspended 
in the thick and heavy atmosphere, through which the- 
rays of the sun light penetrated sparingly. It was stasre 
No. 3, the earth was in a condition to bring forth organic 
beings; and this stage No. 3, was the final cause of stages, 
No. 1 and 2, which contained its efficient causes. 

Was this stage creation's objective point? Certainly 
not. If it had been it must have stopped there, which it 
did not. New functions of the first cause become now 
phenomenal, organic beings of the lowest forms are- 
brought forth in the thick and hot water, the lowest 
forms of vegetables and animals, rising gradually in the 
scale of evolution to huge monsters. Here the final 
cause of all former stages becomes phenomenal in the ex- 
istence of living beings. The first impulse imparted to 
matter by its materialized derivatives has overcome the 
primary tendency of matter to dissolve and separate in 
its elements ; there is an earth of one piece, covered with 
a continuous "sheet of water — and attempts now to come- 
forth from its unconscious to the conscious condition in 
animal centers, to which the vegetables are the state of 
transition in the gradual evolution and differentiation. 
Here then we have stage No. 4, the start of conscious 
centers, in which the force captivated in matter attempts 
its liberation, after it had overcome inert matter to that 
extent that organic formation had become possible; and 
here again stage No. 4 is the final cause of stages Nos. l r 
2, and 3 which contain its efficient causes. 

Following up the progress of creation, we observe how 
the formation of the earth's crust, the change of atmos- 
phere, and the development of vegetable and animal life 
go hand in hand in the regular routine of cause and 



ON METAPHYSICS. 161 

effect. As the water is distilling, its sediments settle 
down to the bottom, the fish make their appearance. As 
the water recedes and swamps ensue, the amphibies fol- 
low, always preceded by their food. As the earth attracts 
the carbon from the atmosphere, producing huge vegeta- 
tion, the birds, carbon inhaling, come in existence, food 
and shelter preceded them. And when the carbon en- 
veloping the earth like a thick cloud had been sufficiently 
attracted by the earth, sun, moon and stars become visi- 
ble on the earth. Here we have stage Xo. 5, the earth 
covered with rich vegetation, land and ocean populated 
with radiates, mollusks, and articulates of most beauteous 
forms, together with fishes, amphibies, and birds, now 
under the direct influence of the Run and the other celes- 
tial bodies, and the earth in its proper orbit. The ob- 
scure gloom has passed away and the age of light has 
commenced on earth. The primary force materialized in 
the earth is reunited with the cosmic light, has liberated 
itself from the state of gloomy obscurity. Here is stage 
No. 5, the final cause of stages Xo. 1, 2, 3, 4, with its 
efficient causes in all of them. 

Now come the creatures of light, the constant types. 
Xow, and not before, the mammals could make their ap- 
pearance. Elementary matter had first to be brought so 
far under the control of the active force before it could 
achieve its liberation from the material bonds of uncon- 
sciousness. But it progresses rapidly through all transi- 
tory forms of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, 
through all phases of conscious beings, always imparting 
to matter higher morphic qualities, preparing it for 
higher formations, until the last triumph is achieved, viz., 
the unconscious has become conscious in the animal 
kingdom, with the vegetables as its points of transition ; 
now the conscious becomes self-conscious in man, with 
the animals as points of transition. The primary force 
becomes self-conscious itself again, in the self-conscious 
man, who, knowing all in his consciousness, distinguishes 
himself from all; and this is his self-consciousness. The 
first cause has become itself again, the self-conscious 
psychical cause of all forces and all motion in matter. 
So the ring of creation was completed with stage Xo. 6 r 
with its efficient causes in stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, of all 
of which it is the final cause and teleological center. 

But here the work is not finished, for man is not fully 

self-conscious until he knows all which is knowable, to- 

distinguish himself from all which is, and consequently 

the work of this cause is not completed with the earth's 

11 



162 THE COSMIC GOD. 

and other planets' creation. Here begins stage No. 7, 
man's history. It is the Creator's Sabbath. The work 
of liberation from matter and the triumph over it, begins 
in man, by him, and for him. He works on to ac- 
complish the subjugation of matter, the resurrection of 
self-conscious spirit, the triumph of life over death, of 
light over darkness, of self-conscious intelligence over 
blind and inexorable powers of darkness ; of freedom, 
love, and happiness over cold and barren necessity. 
This is the creation of history, the progress of the prim- 
ary force to self-conscious existence in the human family, 
and the stages thereof are well marked in the works of 
intelligent historians. Therefore the Bible states : "And 
on the seventh day (not on the sixth) God completed 
His work which He had made ; and He ceased to work 
on the seventh day from all the work He had made (for 
here man's work begins). And God blessed the seventh 
day and sanctified it, because then He had ceased from 
all His work, which God had created to do" (to go on 
and on to perfection with the progression of man's 
history). This stage, No. 7, is the final cause of all pre- 
vious stages which contain its efficient causes. 

You see, ladies and gentlemen, it is all one piece, of 
one cast, one chain of cause and effects, one design, one 
object, all of which must have been present in stage No. 
1 and in each succeeding stage. All of them were in the 
first, the last in the first, and all in each, which the 
ancient Hebrews described as : 

nhnn m^noa hewo rpo 

"The end of the work contained in the first thought." 

Here then is one will, intellect, and design, one object 
and one executive power, one spirit, one piece of inevit- 
able logic, from which no iota can be taken away, none 
added, and none inverted. Here the bare possibility of 
more than one first cause falls to the ground. As soon as 
intelligence claims its right to look upon the cosmos 
through the law of causality, it is led forward and back- 
ward through the unbroken chain to the final cause and 
to the first cause, which reveals its nature in its own 
last triumphs, in the self-conscious intelligence of man. 

He, the substance, who has imparted this first impulse 
to the parallels of matter, of this and any other planet 
or solar system, the impulse from which all forces of na- 
ture have ensued, and by evolution and differentiation, 
constructed this great cosmos, triumphs over all matter 



ON METAPHYSICS. 163 

in the self-conscious intelligence of man, remains in him 
and over him, preserving and governing all, shaping all 
destinies, guiding all and constantly from lower to higher 
conditions ; He who is the Genius of nature and the 
Logos of history, fills all space and is the force of all 
forces ; He is the Cosmic God, for He is the cause of all 
causes, the first principle of all things, the only sub- 
stance whose attributes are life, will, and intellect. Mat- 
ter is the non-substance, for it has no functions ; it is 
the inert, passive, and imperceptible material, which He, 
by the forces, moves, shapes, subjects, and governs. He 
is Almighty, for He is the force of all forces, the cause of 
all causes. He is omniprescent, revealed everywhere by 
the ever-active force of all forces in nature, and every 
motion of the human intellect. He is omniprescent, for 
He fills all space and penetrates all atomic matter. He 
is all-wise and omniscient, for He is the intellect of all 
intellect, its cause and substance. Ho is the Preserver 
and Governor, for He is the will, freedom, and justice. 
He is the Cosmic God, who is not anthropomorphous. 
He is not in heaven above nor on earth below, for He 
is everywhere, in all space, in all objects of nature, in 
every attribute of matter, and in every thought of the 
mind. "E"o man can see me and live." He appeared to 
none, because He continually and simultaneously appears 
to all and through all. He spoke to none, because He 
speaks eternally and simultaneously to all and through 
all. He resides nowhere especially, because He is every- 
where continually. He had no beginning, because He 
made it; and no end, because He has no beginning. He 
changes not, because all changes are effects, and He is 
the cause of all causes and no effect. He is the Cosmic 
God, — the only God, — whose name is ineffable, who alone 
is, was, and will be forever and aye, whose existence 
none can deny, and whose immensity none can compre- 
hend. We know, we feel His immeasureable grandeur, 
and worship Him with awe. 

Scientists, here is your God and Lord, whom you seek, 
and whom to find is the highest wisdom. He is the 
God found by induction and felt by spontaneity. Philos- 
ophers, here is your God, whom to expound is the high- 
est glory of human mind — Kant, and other thinkers, 
bave argued against the anthropomorphous God of the- 
ology ; the cosmic God is philosophy's first and last sub- 
stance. Simple-minded men, here is your God, whom 
you need not seek, for He is everywhere, in you and 
about you, in every quality of matter and every motion 



lf>4 THE COSMIC GOD. 

of the mind ; where you are, He is ; where you observe 
or think, you think Him. Children, here is your God, 
in the fragrance of your flowers, in the beauteous hues of 
vernal blossoms, in the thunder and the whisper, in heav- 
en's azure dome and earth's verdant garb, in your inno- 
cent smiles and your mother's sweet tenderness. Sage or 
fool, great or little, here is your God, you can not escape 
Him, and He cannot escape you ; He is in you, and you 
are in Him. Men of all future generations, here is God 
in the harmony of all human conceptions and knowledge, 
the God of all, and all eternity, the Cosmic God, the 
Great I Am, and none beside Him. 

Thanks to the Almighty, that He has permitted us to 
look into the mysteries of His creation ; that He has led 
and guided us through the obsoure regions of this ma- 
terial world, onward, forward, heavenward, always on 
the simple path of induction, to His very throne, to sim- 
ple, sublime, and eternal truth for all coming generations. 
Humbly ana\gratefully I render praise and thanksgiving 
to the Eternal who has permitted me to conceive these 
thoughts/combinations, and conclusions, which have led 
me back home to the one and eternal God. My soul 
triumphs before Him at this immortal victory. 

So far, in this particular point, induction leads. Here 
deduction begins, and here ends our province at present. 
But we have three more problems to solve, viz., What is 
nature ? What is man ? Which is the relation of God, 
nature, and man ? I propose to begin the discussion of 
these problems in my next lecture. 



NATURE AND ITS RELATION TO DEITY. 165 



LECTURE XXL 



NATURE AND ITS RELATION TO DEITY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — Nature like nature's God is 
a word much abused, often uttered and seldom under- 
stood. Among a thousand probably who use this word, 
there is no more than one who thinks of nature's magni- 
tude, vastness, grandeur, and intricate mechanism, sur- 
passing thought and bewildering contemplation ; and 
among a million using this term, there is sometimes 
scarcely one who has formed a clear idea of it. When 
you hear the atheist or gross materialist declaim of dame 
nature as a personified mother, or utter expressions like 
this : " Every thing is natural, it is all by and in nature, 
nature is the mother of all things, nature does all," and 
similar expressions, you hear just as many empty and 
unmeaning words, of which fact you can convince your- 
selves in a moment, by asking the simple question, What 
is nature ? and the answer received will be as shallow 
and uncertain as the declamations you had been treated 
to. 

It appears to me : Nature is the combination of force 
and matter, and the causal activity of the former in the 
latter in this substance and all its phenomenal modifica- 
tions. The derivation of the term from natus and nasci 
" to be born," points to continual birth, as it were, of 
phenomenal modifications, and to a substantial cause be- 
hind the phenomena, by which birth is given. 

Nature, therefore, contains four distinct ideas : The 
forces which manifest themselves and the matter in which 
it is manifested, which in their union form created sub- 
stance ; the causation in this substance and the modus 
operandi, or causality and modality; and the individual 
objects of nature, continually rising and falling in the 
created substance, or individuation — all of which is con- 
tained in the four categories: Substantial existence, 



166 THE COSMIC GOD. 

causation, modality and phenomenal being, which are the 
foundation of all existence, and also of the ten categories 
of Aristotle. 

Whatever being or attribute of a being springs from 
those four cardinal ideas is to be called natural. Second- 
ary significations of the terms nature or natural do not 
concern us here. 

When we say the world or the universe, we usually 
mean, in the abstract, nature at rest, t. e. space and its 
contents without reference to motion, activity, or causa- 
tion. When we say cosmos, we mean, again in the ab- 
stract, nature at work, in reference to its law, order and 
harmony, and without reference to its substance or ma- 
terial. Both world and cosmos are contained in the term 
nature. 

We have said nothing about time, because it is a non- 
entity; it is a category of a priori thought in reference 
of planetary revolution. Eternity means no time. Wo 
compute time, not on account of its reality but on ac- 
count of our perishable nature and the revolution of the 
planets. Time must be deduced from nature and placed 
within the sphere of human reason. In our dreams time- 
disappears ; so it does with the somnambulist, and 
wherever self- consciousness is suspended. Animals have 
as" little an idea of time, as they have of numbers. We 
arrive at the idea of time by our pulsations and the plan- 
etary motions. What we on this earth call time and the 
beginning of time, the Bereshith, as reads the first word 
of the Bible, could begin with the rotation of this earth 
only. On other planets, time had another beginning, and 
consists of other divisions; and wherever there are no 
self-conscious beings, there is no time. 

Space is the continuity of the substance. All is in 
space and nothing outside thereof. There is no outside 
thereof. Space is the reality itself. It is not merely the 
Where? of all realities, also not a mere category of a 
priori thought ; it is the substance, the force, the first 
cause, God's habitation, and infinite extension, in fact 
indivisible, is an attribute of the substance. There is- 
another time but the same space on every planet. 

There is but one substance, and this one is psychical. 
This one psychical substance with the knowable attributes 
of life, will, intellect and extension is spirit, the Cosmic 
God. Matter whether in the Deity or of the Deity, 
neither of which can be positively denied or affirmed by 
experience and induction, is no substance ; because 
without the influence of force, in its primary and elementary 



NATURE AND ITS RELATION TO DEITY. 167 

state it has no attributes and no qualities, no activity 
and no influence; it is the passive and indifferent zero. 
Whatever is, must demonstrate existence of itself; prim- 
ary matter, by itself, is incapable of such demonstration, 
it is moved, formed and shaped, or made morphic, by 
force or forces, As functions proceed from a substance, 
so a substance must exercise functions. Hence matter is 
no substance. 

It must be added here, that the eternity of matter was 
maintained in philosophy by Aristotle, and the whole- 
perapatetic school. Among the Hebrews Ibn Gabirol 
and G-ersonides defended this doctrine. Ibn Ezra thinks 
bara, the second word of the Bible, does not signify cre- 
ation out of nothing. Maimonides thinks the arguments 
on both sides balance one another, and creation out of 
nothing is no indispensible Jewish dogma. 

Wherever the force of the substance acts upon the ele- 
mentary parallels of matter, the material substance is 
the resultant, in which all causes of the processes and de- 
velopments of the created substance are immanent. 
With this combination of force and matter nature begins. 
It begins with the material substance in every solar sys- 
tem, and every planet with the beginning thereof. There- 
fore nature as it is now, was not created simultaneously; 
nor do experience and induction entitle us, to fix any 
time for the creation of this or any other planet or solar 
system, or even for the formation of any of the earth's 
strata under the entire different conditions of heat, mo- 
tion, electricity and magnet, the aeriform, vaporous or 
liquid state of the material. 

All causes for the processes and developments of the 
material substance being immanent therein, it is also the 
beginning of the law of causality on each planet ; i. e. 
the processes and developments follow in the regular 
routine of cause and effect, of which one of the Psalm 

poets said ■QJ^ fc^l IHJ D1H " ^ e kath g iven a law 

and he will not trespass it." The derivative forces ma- 
terialized in nature, work on and on, as the supreme in- 
tellect has originally designed it producing at every on- 
ward step teleological centers, which contain the final 
cause of previous conditions, hence each is a causalnexus, 
a*nd bears in itself the efficient cause for the next follow- 
ing teleological center. All that is, is by the causal ac- 
tivity of force in matter. It is nature's second step. 

Inasmuch, however, as all solar systems and planets 
consist of the same material substance, the same force 



168 THE COSMIC GOD. 

and matter and the same routine of cause and effect ; 
furthermore, inasmuch as all forces are derivatives and 
materializations of .the one primary and central force; 
there is substantial affinity among all planetary bodies, 
mediated by the central force, in the forms of attraction 
and repulsion. So the whole material world is a unit, a 
cosmos and no chaos, in the regular routine of cause and 
effect, one grand organism, pervaded by the vital force 
in the unconscious state, so that each part, however min- 
ute or immense, must perform intelligently its functions 
in co-ordination and sub-ordination with a!l other parts, 
as is the case in every organic body. That the law ot 
causality extends all over the material world, is sufficiently 
demonstrated by the calculations and predictions of as- 
tronomy, and the laws governing that science. Next we 
must take into consideration the problem, if all plan- 
ets were not created simultaneously, and that they were 
not is generally admitted, how could the existing ones 
keep in their orbits without the attraction of their neigh- 
boring planets not yet in existence? The same question 
is legitimate in regard to solar systems. Here plain 
facts compel us, in planetary attraction, to affirm the man- 
ifestation of the central, primary, superior and governing 
force, which regulates substantial affinity, attraction and 
repulsion. Space is not filled with forces, it is force 
itself, from which the various forms of force in matter 
issue. It consists not of atomic and impenetrable matter; 
it is psychical, it is substance, and there is neither atom 
nor impenetrability, as little as either is in feeling, con- 
sciousness or thought. Therefore the motion of planetary 
bodies is regulated by the primary force, in the Cosmic 
God, before the existence of the planetary neighbors, 
whose attraction then regulates motion. 

But here the atheist or gross materialist steps in and 
maintains, it is all by the laws of nature ; i. e., the laws 
of nature are personified into the superior and governing 
force with intellect and will, as though without either 
they could not govern the material universe in order 
and harmony. The supposed laws of nature are 
metamorphozed into as many gods. I admit the exis- 
tence of nature, and deny the existence of laws therein 
as an active principle. ' What are the laws of nature? 
The constant repetition of the same phenomena or effects 
from the same cause or causes, is called a law of nature, 
You see, the laws of nature are " constant repetitions," 
and are no more substantial that the laws of a state or 
city. They express in general principle the modality, 



NATURE AND ITS RELATION TO DEITY. 169 

the modus operandi of force ; consequently they are formal 
only, expressing the relations of the thinking mind to the 
different modes of being, as classified under the ten cate- 
gories, or probably under my four. Therefore the laws 
of nature are abstractions of the human mind, are in the 
same and not in material nature, where force is the per- 
petual originator of cause and effect. The laws as such, 
if anywhere outside of the human mind, can be in the 
divine mind only. There, I will add, there they must be. 
For the forces are the cause of the regular succession of 
cause and effect in undisturbed harmony; and all forces 
are materialized derivatives of the primary force which 
is a function of the substance, hence of G-od. There can 
be nothing in the effect which is not also in the cause ; 
hence the whole chain of cause and effect, all the pro- 
cesses and developments of the material substance, the 
whole system of evolution and differentiation to the very 
end of existence, must have been present in the substance 
prior to the first act of creation, and must have been im- 
parted to the material substance with the very first im- 
pulse, or else causation was not immanent in nature. 
This is the omniscience of the Cosmic God, He being 
the cause of all causes inclusive of all possible effects, as 
each effect in its turn becomes cause again. All laws of 
nature being formal abstractions of the perpetual con- 
tinuity of cause and effect, must be present in the divine 
mind. 

Here is reality of the universal spirit, fictitiously pos- 
tulated by La Place. Dubois admits the probable reality 
of this universal spirit; but he says, I can find no brain 
in the universe, and brain according to that physiologist 
and others is the cause of thought, consciousness, reason, 
etc., t. e., the machine generates its own force, not only 
by which it works, but also by which it has become a 
machine. This, however, is no objection to us who know 
the presence of will and intellect in every manifestation 
of force, crystal or blade of grass, bud or blossom, polyp 
or man, cell or sun. This is certainly no objection with 
us, who hold there can be no effect without an adequate 
cause, and there can be nothing in the effect which is not 
also in the cause ; hence all organisms and every part 
thereof, all as a unit, parts of which are actualized in the 
•various plants and animals, must be first in the organiz- 
ing force, in the vital force, in the primary force, in the 
substance. Every morphic idea actualized anywhere 
must be in the primary force, in the substance of which 
it is a function, and all morphic ideas must be a unit in 



170 THE COSMIC GOD. 

the one and universal force. Hence God is the organism 
of all organisms, if Mr. Dubois wants it expressed so, not 
merely potential but actual, for what we call actual in. 
matter is really actual in the universal mind and po- 
tential in matter as its moving cause. We, of course, 
would express it so : The cause contains more than the 
aggregate of its effects, anyhow it must contain each of 
its effects. Will and intellect, appearing as effects, in the 
individuals from a cause in the substance, must be infi- 
nitely greater in the cause than in all effects thereof. So 
Mr. Dubois might find also a brain in the grand organism 
of nature, which is not necessary for us, to whom "brain 
is not the cause but an effect of will and intellect and 
their momentary apparatus. 

Here, however, Hegel and the Heglians, down to Lud- 
wig Noire, Schoppenhauer, Ed. von Hartmann, Volkert, 
Yenetianer, Huxley, Spencer, and a few more, besides 
David Frederic Strauss, chime in : Provided the Cosmic 
God is self-conscious, the laws of nature are present in his 
consciousness ; if not, not. Not having discussed yet the 
question of consciousness and self-consciousness in gen- 
eral, I can not apply them here understandingly, and 
must postpone this question till my next lecture. Still, 
on the strength of the foregoing argument, I am entitled 
to postulate, that intellect materialized becomes uncon- 
scious; intellect itself dematerialized is always self-con- 
scious. The forces of nature are psychical and substantial, 
but they are materialized ; hence intellect in the inor- 
ganic matter is unconscious will, therefore it is always 
logical and always reaches its aims and purposes. When 
we speak of natural forces, we actually speak of as many 
ideas in the divine mind. The ideas themselves are un- 
conscious, but they are always in a self-conscious mind,, 
as is the case with all ideas of which we have any cog- 
nition. So God is immanent in nature, omnipresent 
therein as the cause thereof, and revealed in every phe- 
nomenon, and in every quality of matter, by active force. 
It must always be borne in mind that in the substance 
thought means deed, an ideal fact; thinking is real in 
connection with omnipotence. When you have an idea, 
you may have a volition to do so, and consider whether 
you should and could or not ; all of which is not the case 
in the Deity. 

Again as this material nature is only a small fraction 
of the universe, the worlds are mere points in space ; 
God is not inhumated, interred, incarnated, or material- 
ized in nature. The cause is not lost in its effects, not 



NATURE AND ITS RELATION TO DEITY. 171 

submerged and not exhausted in them. The cause re- 
mains the cause forever, independent of all effects, and 
infinitely more than the aggregate of its effects. God is 
inceptive in the mathematical sense of this term. He is 
the universe, and material nature is in Him ; but he is 
not exhausted therein. The Cosmic God is not out- 
side of the universe, nothing can be thought or imagined 
outside thereof, but He is outside of material nature as 
well as inside thereof ; therefore we call Him the super- 
mundane God. 

The natural forces being ps3 T chical and unconscious in 
their materialized state, seek liberation from unconscious- 
ness, and break through the material bonds in the or- 
ganic kingdoms, in the centers of consciousness and self- 
consciousness, and so the primary force becomes gradu- 
ally itself again in uncounted millions of ideas. 

Here is one of our great advantages over materialism. 
It can not account for consciousness, the simplest sensa- 
tion or feeling, or even the formation of a cell or a pro- 
toplasm. Where the infusorium with its red point of 
eyes sees rays of light, or the polypees the living infuso- 
rium, where a sea-weed or a blade of grass grows, or a 
spider weaves its web, the philosophy of materialism is 
at an end, simply because its premises are erroneous and 
false. *We know the tree by its fruits. With us, how- 
ever, the whole process of nature is a unit. The primary 
force is vital force, is will and intellect, consequently all 
causes of organic life and functions are in it. It over- 
comes and metamorphozes matter gradually and syste- 
matically prepares organic buds on the tree of life, un- 
folds them to blossoms of consciousness, and ripens them 
to fruits of self-consciousness. Conscious centers are 
produced by the same force which created the material 
substance, preserves and governs it, and individuates it- 
self therein. It is the psychical force becoming itself 
again. It is its victory over matter. 

With us also many absurd questions fall to the ground. 
What does God do, if the forces of nature do it all ? — is 
one of those absurd queries. Where are the derivative 
forces, if their efficient cause be withdrawn ? we ask in 
return, and the only reply is, if God should withdraw 
himself from nature, it would become again Tohu Ubohu. 
The cause removed and the effects are no more. Why 
did God not create this world or others millions of years 
before? is another absurdity with us, who know that 
time is a nonentity, and the nonentity can not be taken 
into consideration. Who made God ? is probably the 



172 THE COSMIC GOD. 

most absurd of all absurd questions. God is the First 
Cause, and an endless regression of causes is in itself ab- 
surd, as Aristotle already discovered. 

With us there is only one God, one substance, and thio 
is psychical. He is the universe, and the force; life, free- 
dom, will, intellect, are his cardinal attributes, which in- 
clude omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and su- 
preme justice. Matter without force is the non-substance, 
the indifferent zero. Nature is the created substance of 
force and matter, and is continually in God and under 
his control. The natural forces are materialized deriva- 
ties from the primary force, which is a function of the 
substance, and like it psychical. In 'the organic beings 
the primary force becomes again itself, conscious and 
then self-conscious in man. The creation and nature of 
man is no less plain and simple in this unity of archi- 
tecture; but we must postpone this subject to our next 
lecture. 



MAN IN HIS RELATIONS TO GCD AND NATURE. 173 



LECTURE XXII. 



MAN IN HIS RELATIONS TO GOD AND NATURE. 



Ladies and Gentlemen. — Nature's beauty, grandeur, 
and sublimity, exist in the aesthetical consciousness of 
intelligent beings; hence on earth in man only. The 
mind is not merely the mirror of nature, it is nature's 
magic wand which enlivens the reflexes and adorns them 
with the charms and graces which it possesses. In man, 
nature or the first cause of this planet, becomes self-con- 
scious, itself again. Imagination is the kaleidescope 
turned by the senses and phantasy. Consciousness is 
the mind's animating and animated focus, where na- 
ture collects and recognizes itself again. In its highest 
degree, consciousness is the utmost, the ne plus ultra of 
nature, in which the whole C3 r cle of evolutions is com- 
pleted. The self-conscious cause of this planet's crea- 
tion, has become self-conscious, itself again. 

Therefore consciousness is nature's final cause, its last 
objeet and highest function. It must be admitted, either 
this cosmos has no object of existence, or it exists to be 
known, admired, and enjoyed, which makes the existence 
of conscious beings necessary as the final cause. We 
know that nature is the work of intelligence ; and intel- 
ligence, such is the law of its nature, is always at work 
to accomplish preconcerted ends. In the common trans- 
actions of our every-day life, we expect everywhere a- 
premeditated end of intelligent labor, simply because it 
is the law of intelligence. Let us add here, that it is 
certainly absurd to expect more wisdom of the differen- 
tiated than of the universal intellect. Therefore nature 
has a final cause which must have been premeditated in 
a self-consciousness and end again in self-consciousness, 
as nothiug can come out of nothing, and no effect can be 
more than its cause. 

Consciousness is of different degrees between infuso* 



174 THE COSMIC GOD. 

rium and man. It comprises two elements, viz.: the ob- 
jects outside, and the ideas inside of the conscious be- 
ing, knowledge and being, so that it is both objective 
and subjective. It is the only organ which unites and 
harmonizes these two elements, so that it announces it- 
self as the last ring in the chain of being, closing the 
circle of existence between the differentiated and univer- 
sal intelligence, nature's final cause, the re-appearance of 
its first cause. 

The different degrees of consciousness depend on its 
quality of intensity. Let us compare it, for illustration, 
to a light in the center of a conscious being, to be also 
its focus. The light of the lowest quality or intensity 
will diffuse its rays to but a short distance and illumin- 
ate but a few objects ; hence few will be reflected in the 
focus. The light of the highest quality and intensity will 
reach and illuminate a large circle of objects, hence re- 
flect many in its focus, and reflect them so much clearer 
and more distinct. Imagine a large plain, the horizon 
bounded by a chain of mountains here, a forest there, a 
lake yonder, with a variety of objects on it, all seen dis- 
tinctly in the light of the sun. Then see the same plain 
in moon light ; how much smaller, how many objects 
change their forms or disappear altogether; in a dark 
night with a torch light or a lantern in hand, you see 
less and less, and the objects seen become less distinct. 
So consciousness differs in various organic beings from 
infusorium to man up to great and comprehensive 
minds. 

In the highest classes of animals, consciousness reaches 
not beyond the periphery of self-preservation, the indi- 
vidual, and the race. It becomes conscious of the ob- 
jects which have some direct relation to its self-preserva- 
tion, without the idea of number, time, cause, effect, color 
or shape. It is a kind of dim consciousness, called so 
because we have no word to express it correctly. The 
consciousness of man is of an entirely different quality. 
He sees the universe, or rather enough of it to form an 
idea of the whole; and in the universe he is conscious of 
forces, laws, mind, and God. He penetrates far beyond 
the periphery of self-preservation, and the objects within 
that line. He lifts the veil of sensual objects to recognize 
causes and the cause of causes. Man only knowo na- 
ture, hence he alone can be nature's final cause, in whom 
the first cause becomes itself again. 

The reflection of nature, metamorphozed to living 
ideas in man's consciousness, is so powerful in the focus, 



MAN IN HIS RELATION TO GOD AND NATURE. 175 

that man becomes the index of nature, a minature uni- 
verse, in which he sees also himself and his own appa- 
ratus of cognition. He makes himself subject and object 
of his consciousness, the thinker, the thinking, and the 
object thought, i. e., he is self-conscious. He recognizes 
himself with all his capacities and abilities, and the uni- 
verse reflected in him. He recognizes the causes in him 
and outside of him, his own reality and universality 
together with the reality and universality outside 
of him, and the laws governing both. The cause of 
self -consciousness is certainly the intensity of conscious- 
ness, recognizing so many objects, causes, laws and 
effects which he must compare among themselves and to 
himself, that by the very law of contradiction, he must 
become self-conscious. Therefore animals can not be 
self-conscious, and among men it varies in degree accord- 
ing to the quantity and quality of cognitions and com- 
parisons, so that the most powerful intellect, the most 
enlarged and enriched intelligence, the most active and 
exact mind developes the most powerful self-conscious- 
ness, in whom nature has become itself again. 

Here we have arrived at another very important point, 
a prominent trait of human nature. Self-consciousness 
comprises not only all the mental functions of man, but 
also his moral character. Self-conscious beings only can 
be moral, for they and they only, know that the moral 
law, the categoric imperative, is the law of their own na- 
ture. To be moral signifies to obey the moral law as it 
is, and because it is a component part, a constituent of 
human nature. Morality from any other motive is far 
from perfection. There may be, and I have no doubt 
there are moral traits in all living beings, as Mr. Darwin 
and other biologists maintain, since the nature of the 
first cause is universally the same; there may be, and I 
have no doubt there are, moral traits in all human be- 
ings, however degraded or savage; but morality in the 
proper sense of the term depends on self-consciousness. 
One can be moral knowingly and wittingly only, that he 
obeys the laws of his own nature as a free agent. 
Therefore the various degrees of self-consciousness make 
also the various degrees of morality, so that with the 
loftiest self-consciousness only, the highest degree of 
morality is possible. Here is the philosophical founda- 
tion of ethics, but we cannot discuss it here, and will 
only add that the loftiest self-consciousness is in God, 
therefore also the perfection of morality. 

Where is the cause of all that? Where and how do 



176 TIIE COSMIC GOD. 

consciousness, self-consciousness, and moral conscience 
awake in the living being, and what is the nature of that 
anomaly? They are not in the materialist's matter, in 
atoms, and atomic forces ; hence the materialist replies, I 
do not know. They are not in Schopenhauer's irrational 
will as the world's substance, therefore he gives us no 
answer how the irrational becomes rational. They are 
not in Hartmann's unconscious will and intellect as the 
world's substance, hence here the very weakest point of 
that philosophy, as Yolkert well remarks. ]S"or are they 
in Hegel's absolute idea, which, though logical, is no less 
unconscious and void of moral principle than Hart- 
mann's unconscious substance ; and all the pointed words 
used as to the self-division of the idea and the opposition 
of its parts, are void of any substantial meaning, as they 
name not the quodity of consciousness and morality. 
That these functions exist can as little be doubted as we 
can change the truisms, nothing can come from nothing, 
something only can produce something, and the effect 
must be in the cause. Hence we are compelled to place 
the cause back into the very nature of intellect, as an at- 
tribute thereof, and say intellect is always self-conscious 
and moral ; therefore the first cause of this and every 
other planet must be self-conscious and moral. But we 
know that inorganic nature is neither, that the degrees 
vary in the organic beings as we descend the scale of or- 
ganism to arrive finally at stupor and unconsciousness. 
We know that in all these phenomena we have but ona 
first cause before us. Hence, the conclusion appears to 
me as irresistible as the cogito ergo sum, hence the first 
cause is self-conscious and moral ; its derivative forces 
are unconscious in their materialization in nature, to 
break through matter, and by the gradual process of 
evolution make it fit of becoming organisms for 
self-conscious manifestations of intelligence ; and in them 
the first cause becomes itself again in the differentiated 
state which is its victory over matter, while all the time 
the conscious and unconscious, the moral and immoral, 
are present in the self-consciousness and morality of the 
first cause which is God for ever. 

This explains all phenomena, accidental or substantial, 
from the principle. So the vegetable kingdom is the 
transition from the unconscious to the conscious in mat- 
ter ; and the animal is the transition from the conscious 
to the self-conscious in man, with all gradations in both 
cases j and the natural man is the transition from the 
lowest to the highest degree of self-consciousness and 



MAN IN HIS RELATIONS TO GOD AND NATURE. 177 

morality in the man of culture and civilization, the man 
of history. It is all one first cause, developing gradually 
its various functions in the progression of evolutions. 
It is all self-conscious in the first cause to become again 
self-conscious in man. It is the fundamental principle 
of vital monism. It is also the philosophical foundation 
of moral theology, without ignoring one fact of science. 

This refutes Emanuel Kant's supposition that we can 
not know the thing per se (das Ding an sich). We do 
know it as soon as we are sufficiently self-conscious. 
Man is the thing per se, matter and force, cause and 
effect, inorganic matter, solid, liquid, gas, vegetable, ani- 
mal, spirit, unconscious, conscious, and self-conscious. 
He is nature's complete index, the mycrocosm in the 
macrocosm. He is matter's last gradations and the 
spirit's final triumph over it. Whenever man will have 
knowledge enough of himself and nature, he will easily 
discover in himself das Ding an sich. 

So man s relation to Grod and nature is clear. He is 
the connecting link between both. He represents un- 
conscious nature and self-conscious God. He stands un- 
der the control of nature's forces which he controls by 
the last triumph of mind over matter. He is continually 
the governor and the governed, the perpetual struggle 
and triumph of mind over matter, always progressing 
in the dominion of the conscious over the unconscious in 
the process of history. This leads us into the realm of 
history. 

In countless millions of ideas, not one exactly like the 
other, the first cause of this planet has become conscious 
again ; and in another unknown number of ideas it has 
become self-conscious, itself again, in human beings, dif- 
ferentiated and individualized with freedom. While the 
analogous traits of intellect under all circumstances point 
to one univeral intellect, the variety of capacities, abili- 
ties, talents, geniuses, and inclinations, point just as dis- 
tinctly to freedom, individuality, personality, self-acting 
intellect and will in man. As such, to use a rabbinical 
metaphor, man is an associate of the Deity in the con- 
tinuation of the creation. It is by the continuous devel- 
opment of human nature in the process of history to a 
•higher degree of self-consciousness, that the first cause 
becomes more and more itself in man's triumphs over 
unconscious nature. So the progression of history is 
the progression of the first cause to its highest tri- 
umphs. 

12 



17$ tHE COSMIC GOD. 

Man's self-eonsciousness increases with the increase of 
his knowledge, and with it, his moral nature grows in 
beautiful proportion and harmony. I do not mean to 
maintain that those who possess the most extensive 
learning are necessarily the most moral men, although 
as a generaj thing they are ; I only maintain that self- 
consciousness is the cause, and morals the effect, and the 
effect can never be higher than its cause. With every 
onward step in knowledge and morality, man gains do- 
minion over the lower realms of nature, the conscious 
subjugates the unconscious, and so he assists the Deity in 
the government of matter, the triumph of self conscious 
and moral intelligence. The history of philosophy 
marks the onward steps of growing self-consciousness ; 
the history of government and religion marks out the 
onward march of morality, and the history of arts and 
inventions tells man's progress in the government of 
mechanical nature. The highest law for man is to ad- 
vance himself and others in self- consciousness, morality, 
and dominion over mechanical nature, the triumph and 
mastery of the conscious over the unconscious, of mind 
over matter. So man fulfills his destiny in society, and 
elevates himself to an immortal personality. Here is 
the fundamental idea in philosophy for the doctrine of 
the soul's immortality. 

History is the functional development of the first cause 
of this planet in the various personalities, each of whom 
is a self-conscious idea in that first cause, hence in God. 
Each period in history is the final cause of all preceding 
ones, and the last will be the final cause'of all the former. 
Every person makes history as far as he fulfills his des- 
tiny. Each period of history is made by the persons act- 
ing at that period ; hence every person fulfilling his des- 
tiny in history is in himself a final cause of creation 
and history. 

Again as man's seL -consciousness grows with the in- 
crease of his knowledge, and his morality with his self- 
consciousness, he must necessarily live and co-operate 
with the society of progressive culture and civilization. 
For man receives most of his knowledge from man and 
the established institutions, least from his own observa- 
tion and experience, and moral perfection can be reached 
in society only. Society and not the brain or nerves of 
the individual is the depository of actualized mind from 
all past ages, preserved in books, documents, works of 
art, articles of daily use, state and social organizations 



MAN IN HIS RELATIONS TO GOD AND NATURE. 179 

and establishments, customs, maxims, popularized prin- 
ciples, laws, moral and intellectual habits, modes of liv- 
ing, scholastic and educational establishments, and means 
of communication, multiplying and improving with every 
passing day. 

The principle underlying the social problem is the per- 
petual re-union of all personalities, however distant from 
one another in time or space, in one great self-conscious- 
ness of the human family, and so again to re-act on each 
personality. While any generation or individual makes 
mankind's knowledge and experience his own, he unites 
himself with all the personalities of the past. While he 
lives and co-operates with the generation in which he 
lives, he makes its knowledge and experience his own, 
and unites himself with all the personalities of his age. 
So^he work of perpetual re-union of all personalities, of 
all ages, goes on continually, elevating the self-conscious- 
ness and moral principle of mankind and re-acting per- 
petually on each individual. As the self-consciousness 
of humanity in its totality is an attribute of the eternal 
Deity, so the personal self-consciousness, the personality, 
is a self-conscious idea in the Deity, hence immortal as 
such. This is the fundamental idea to a philosophy of 
history. The growth of the self-consciousness of man- 
kind and the proportional growth of the individual are 
always and continually the final cause of creation and 
history. To establish the efiicient causes which produced 
this final cause is the main work of a philosophy of his- 
tory. 

So man's relations to God and nature as an active, free 
moral agent are clear. He is capacitated and prompted 
by natural impulses to co-operate with the Deity in 
bringing about the triumphs of mind over matter, of the 
conscious over the unconscious, in the steady progressions 
of mankind's self-consciousness, morality and freedom, 
and its reaction on the individual personalities, by which 
man and mankind are elevated to immortality, i. e., to 
an attribute and self-conscious idea in the Deity. The 
perpetual re-union of all personalities in the self-con- 
sciousness, and the progresses of science, art, philosophy, 
morals, freedom and religion in each generation, are the 
means to the end of nature's first cause becoming itself 
again in man's self-consciousness. This is the foundation 
of all philosophical ethics. Alan's happiness depends on 
the triumphs of mind over matter. 

The circle is closed and so is the cycle of my lectures 
for this season. Hatter, force, law, God, creation, na- 



180 THE COSMIC GOD. 

ture, man, history, will, intellect, self-consciousness, 
efficient, and final causes, aim, object, duty and destiny 
are clear conceptions, well defined ideas to us. We have 
solved the problems by the light of induction. The sys- 
tem is a complete organism, as far as induction leads, 
and beyond it I can not go in these lectures. 



And now Ladies and Gentlemen permit me to speak a 
parting word to you. Twenty-two evenings we have 
met here in intellectual communion. Many a counte- 
nance I had not seen before, has become to me familiar 
and endeared. Search after the sacred gems of truth 
has united us in bonds Of sacred friendship. I thank 
you all for the kind attention you have paid to my hum- 
ble efforts. 1 thank you for your company on the rug- 
ged path of philosophical inquiry, for the sympathy you 
have manifested for my darling child, whose name is 
light, more light. 

None will ever learn, under what painful and truly dis- 
tressing influences these lectures were conceived, written 
and delivered. Many a time did I argue before you the 
most difficult problems, while my heart was aching, 
throbbing, weeping, almost breaking. The woeful passions 
and struggles of my soul were artificially hidden under 
the thick veil of arguments. None will ever learn, and 
learning it would never believe it, and yet I must tell it 
as a lesson for many, what I have done in the darkest 
hours of my existence, and how I have accomplished it. 

Know it all, young people especially. When I was 
young, I chose a bride, the fairest of all maidens, and to 
her I made the sacred vow of fidelity. She always loved, 
cherished, encouraged and inspired me with confidence, 
boldness and fortitude. In the hours of success and vic- 
tory she triumphed loudly over my gladness; in all 
trials, when earthly joys and mundane happiness de- 
serted me, friends forsook me, and foes scorned, she was 
my angel of consolation, doubled and trebled her tender- 
ness, and lavished it profusely on her hapless consort. 
Often have I abandoned her, roamed thoughtlessly far, 
far away, until I fell in the wild chase wounded, crushed, 
bleeding, moaning. Then I always returned home to 
her, and she always smiled again in holy sympathy, 
fanned cooling air at my glowing brows, kissed the grief 
from my forehead, wiped away the tears, balmed the 
wounds, and restored me to health and vigor. Eternally 



MAN IN HIS RELATIONS TO GOD AND NATURE. 181 

young, bright, kind, forbearing, affectionate and mild, 
she always was the same angel of consolation. '* 

Again in the days of my sorrow, in affliction and dis- 
tress, I have sought her and found her again. Again she 
has taken me by the hand and taught me the great prin- 
ciple, a man must be stronger than his grief. This im- 
mortal bride, this matchless angel, friends, is — Science, 
Philosophy, the eternal banner bearer of eternal truth- 
She never deserted, never deceived, never refused me 
her love and her consolation. The earnest disciple of 
science, philosophy, finds in the luminous regions of in- 
telligence a world of happiness, also in the midst of seas 
of affliction and distress. One Eureka! at a discovered 
truth outweighs years of patience, anxiety and suffering ; 
and each Eureka ! is a diadem of glory from yonder 
heavenborn queen. Each Eureka ! invigorates with self- 
consciousness, pride, force, happiness and glory in the 
mind's self- created paradise. 

I recommend my bride to all, and promise them never 
to be jealous ; for her heart is vast enough to embrace 
all, to love all, and to bless all. 




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